


The Riderless Horse

by bob_fish



Series: Wrong Turn 'verse [30]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Bromance, Gen, Mystery, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:26:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bob_fish/pseuds/bob_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You've only been awake for thirty-six hours, staged a coup, fought a bunch of monsters and nearly died a few times. It's not as if you've had a tough day.</i> Post-Manga, Slightly AU from Ch 105. What if Olivia Armstrong hadn't survived the Promised Day? The final battle is over, but the struggle for Amestris goes on - and if Team Mustang were looking forward to a little rest and recuperation, they can think again. When Fuhrer Grumman dies after only a few hours in office, Roy and Riza launch a secret murder investigation. The stakes are high: not only the country's future, but the lives of everyone they know …</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a part of my [Wrong Turn 'verse](http://bob_fish.livejournal.com/5137.html), and a prequel to [No Small Injury](http://bob-fish.livejournal.com/2444.html). However - it's gen, and can also be read as a standalone to canon if you'd like to do so.
> 
> Illustrated by [](http://a-big-apple.livejournal.com/profile)[**a_big_apple**](http://a-big-apple.livejournal.com/) , [](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/profile)[**dreamer1789**](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://almost-british.livejournal.com/profile)[**almost_british**](http://almost-british.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Thanks to enemytosleep for her usual kickass job as editor and beta, to cornerofmadness, seatbeltdrivein and havocmangawip for awesome specialist advice and feedback, and a_big_apple for draft feedback and cheerleading.

Roy isn't exactly getting the guided tour of Armstrong Manor. Olivia Armstrong strides rapidly through the vast, high-ceilinged rooms of her family home, looking only ahead of her. Her legs are longer than his, Roy tells himself as he tries to keep pace with her. All the furniture is swathed in dust sheets. Roy looks down at the old inlaid marble floor, then up at the ceiling fresco. His mother would give her eye teeth to have a good nose around here. He'll meet her in a few hours. He hopes that her calculations are right, and that they haven't already come for her. His stomach gives a little twist of fear. He wishes she'd left on the train with the girls. He wishes the girls could send word that they made it.

It's the day before the eclipse.

If Olivia Armstrong dies, she declares, she's leaving this house to Roy. At first, he assumes she's just saying that to show how her family's traditions are just so much dead wood to her, that she's trying to stick it to her old man. It takes a few moments for him to see the unsubtly hidden message in that silly declaration.

She's leaving him the country.

The idea is somewhat mind-blowing. Their rivalry is civilised, but about matters of government, their disagreement is profound. He has never considered before that she might countenance leaving him in charge. He supposes it means that he won't have to contend with a Briggs rebellion if she dies tomorrow. If he survives. He briefly considers returning the sentiment, but doesn't. It's hardly necessary. If he were to die, she'd hardly be waiting for an endorsement from his people. She'd have her boots up on the Fuhrer's desk before his corpse was even cold.

If there was such as thing as a good dictator, Olivia Armstrong would make one - but Roy doesn't believe in good dictators. He believes in the mess of democracy: presidential elections, squabbling political parties, protests, radicals handing out pamphlets. He believes in heated arguments in pubs in which people shout out loud that the President is a moron, in a free press cruelly documenting every time a politician loses his dignity in public. This country was cobbled together from fifteen warring states, by a monster, to serve that monster's purposes - but Roy doesn't love it any the less for that. Amestris has become worth loving through her people, and her people can remake her into something better.

Roy himself spoke with Grumman a few days ago, trying to strategise about what to do next if Roy dies tomorrow - although he's absolutely _not_ going to let it happen. Grumman was unhelpful. He offered contingency plans, but he kept trying to divert the conversation. He laughed and told Roy he was indestructible, remember that time when he was eight, and fell sixteen feet out of the big oak in University Park? Roy tried to tell him that this was a much taller tree, but Grumman laughed and told him he worried too much for someone so young.

That's the exact problem: Grumman has known Roy since he was a child, through Roy's mother. In Grumman's mind, Roy is still about eight years old. Roy can hardly believe that after a whole career spent in the military, half of it dealing with the endless troubles of the East, Grumman still has any belief that your affection can protect the people around you. But he's old. This is obviously one of his bouts of sentimentality. Roy pushes him into making plans, but in the end he just lets him have his belief that nothing bad could possibly happen. He imagines that if it comes down to a contest between Armstrong and Grumman, things might not go well for the old man.

Olivia Armstrong strides away from him into the trees. Roy watches her go with a grin, amused at how he's riled her up. Then it flashes sharp and solid into his mind that this was the last conversation they will ever have. _Might be the last_ , he corrects himself. _Stop being melodramatic_. Armstrongs and Armstrong Manor both influence one to melodrama. Everything around here is too big, too theatrical, but Roy is a Mustang: he's been taught different lessons. The first thing he ever learnt from Chris Mustang was, _keep your wits about you and stay in the game_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You've only been awake for thirty-six hours, staged a coup, fought a bunch of monsters and nearly died a few times. It's not as if you've had a tough day._ The final battle is over, but the struggle for Amestris goes on - and if Team Mustang were looking forward to a little rest and recuperation, they can think again.

_After the game is before the game._  
Sepp Herberger

  
Roy's head hurts. Except 'hurt' doesn't really seem to cover it. A tiny soccer team is bouncing tiny balls off the walls of his brain, hard. Just for fun, they have set the soccer balls on fire. He sits in the medical tent, hunched forward, teeth gritted, trying not to yell.

Roy knows approximately nothing about medical alchemy, which is probably why he didn't anticipate it was going to be this nasty. He's witnessed a lot of miracles today, even if he couldn't see most of them. Is it so unreasonable that he was expecting something a little miraculous? Perhaps a warm glow from Dr. Marcoh's finger on his closed eyelids, a red crackle of lightning he wouldn't be able to see, and then a sudden and dramatic return of sight, like someone whipping off a blindfold?

Instead, he got this.

"So, you can fix nerve damage with the Stone?" he'd asked. He might have already accepted the offer, but he was still processing the shock of it: the angry souls of Ishbal, spending themselves to fix his eyes for him. He wondered half-hysterically if they could go on strike.

"Well, I've never used it on something as delicate as an optic nerve," said Marcoh huffily. "And I wouldn't exactly use the term _fix_. This is still medicine, not magic. Alchemists imagine all sorts of things about the Philosopher's Stone, but it's still a form of energy, like any other: it's finite, it obeys laws. Until I transmute, I can't be certain how far into the brain the damage is."

"What do you mean?" said Roy stupidly, and then immediately hoped Marcoh wasn't going to answer him. Hearing the words _damage_ and _brain_ so close together in a sentence made him think that it might be better to know as little as possible beforehand.

"Open your eyes wide and tip your head back for me," said Marcoh briskly. "And please don't wriggle."

His left eyelid was gently lifted, as if Marcoh was going to look back there with a flashlight - and then a scalding, agonising drop of liquid wormed its way around the back of his eye. As Roy flinched and bit his lip despite himself, Marcoh was already lifting the other eyelid and depositing a second drop.

The first couple of moments were unbearable. Roy's brain, ever helpful, translated the feeling to a vivid mental image of a droplet of acid burrowing its way through tissue and jelly. Roy thought _he got it wrong, I'm going to die_. Now he realises that it could well be working just fine. He still can't see anything - but then, he's got his eyes screwed tight shut right now, so fair enough.

He's dimly aware of something being done to his hands. It really stings. Luckily, he's got the agony of his eyes being burned from the inside out to distract him.

The next time he's aware of anything, he's apparently no longer sitting in a tent, but instead lying in a room. Was he moved? Did he pass out? It seems to be some kind of doctor's office, he registers fuzzily: there are medical charts and pictures of lungs and things on the walls. He's lying on a patient bench. His headache has faded to a bearable but unpleasant throb, and he is absolutely parched. There's a jug of water and a glass on a trolley by the bench. He sinks it, feels instantly three hundred per cent better, and pours himself another.

From the other side of the room, Marcoh stands, potters over to him, and gives him a jolly, gap-toothed grin. He holds a finger up in front of Roy's nose. He moves it to the left, then to the right.

It now occurs to Roy that he can see.

***

Illustration by [](http://a-big-apple.livejournal.com/profile)[**a_big_apple**](http://a-big-apple.livejournal.com/). Go leave a comment for her [here!](http://a-big-apple.livejournal.com/58349.html)

***

Hawkeye's hand sits just above his elbow. She talks quietly to him, a brusque running commentary on the action. "Alphonse looks whole," she tells him, after she's guided him forward to shake a small, skinny hand. "Edward has cuts and bruises, and the right arm has been smashed to shrapnel, but he'll be all right." Roy can tell that much anyway by the fact that he can hear him from here, yelling jovially at someone or other to hand over that water canteen, and now go get his brother a sandwich.

So much has happened. There's so much to take in - which makes it easier for Roy to focus upon things other than the fact that his whole life has just exploded around him.

A low female voice says, "Colonel Mustang." There's a discernible accent; she pronounces 'Colonel' with three syllables. Is this how he's going to recognise people now?

"Ran Fan Yao, yes?"

"Yes."

There's a rustling of cloth, and Hawkeye says, "No, no, I'll take it." Metal jingles. Coins? After a moment, she says quietly, "These are Major General Armstrong's dog tags."

"I found her in an underground chamber with a circle on the floor." Roy nods; of course he knows the one. "She killed the creature Bradley, at the cost of her own life. I was with her in her last moments."

Roy thanks her quietly. There's another rustle of cloth, and her quiet footsteps: off to deal with her own business, presumably.

He and Hawkeye are silent for a moment. So, Armstrong did exactly what she intended to do and slew a monster. He wondered if she regretted the price at all? Probably not.

Roy thinks of their conversation yesterday. It's his, but it isn't. The country is his, and it's just out of his reach. He could try, knowing his enemies will try to take advantage of all the open weaknesses of a man newly rehabilitating from blinding, of all the things he hasn't yet learned to compensate for or to work around. Or - he could hand the country over to the only other person he'd trust with it: Lieutenant General Grumman. Then - he doesn't know what he'd do, if that. There's a tight ball of blazing emotion in his chest, waiting to unleash itself upon him, and he's dreading it. He remembers Havoc in the hospital bed next to him, staring at the ceiling and saying quietly, as if he didn't know Roy was listening, "Now what?"

"Lieutenant, where is Major Armstrong?"

Hawkeye's fingers tighten a little around his arm. She's always had a kind heart. "He's talking to the Elrics. He's brought them a loaf of bread."

Roy listens hard through the noise of the throng, and hears Armstrong's rumbling exclamations, Fullmetal's nervous laughter. "Take me to him."

***

What has just happened to Roy is unbelievable, and vastly unfair, and he's desperately grateful and somehow furious with himself - and he can't let himself think about any of this just yet.

"How long is this going to take?" asks Roy. Marcoh gives him a look. "That sounded rude. What I mean is, I've got a lot to do and I need to do it now. Could I come back for the medical exam later?"

"I can't stop you," says Marcoh in a tone that implies he really wishes he could. "But I wouldn't recommend it. You've just regrown a quarter inch of optic nerve on both sides, right before where it enters the brain tissue. I've never done this procedure before - obviously - and so I wouldn't advise -"

"Thank you!" says Roy, hopping down from the table. His words feel ridiculously inadequate. He shakes Marcoh's hand vigorously. "Ishbal - I'll keep my word. Thank you for your trust."

Behind the mask of scars, most of the irritation seems to have dropped from Marcoh's face. He puts both his hands around Roy's and bows his head for a moment. Then he says, "Careful with those hands. No writing and no heavy lifting for a few days."

Roy flexes his hands and thinks suddenly, stupidly, _those too_. He glances down: each hand has a long shiny pink scar now, both on the back and on the palm. There isn't even any real pain, just a vague ache. He blinks.

"I'll be back later," says Roy, "and I promise then you can do all the tests you want. Thank you."

Outside the clinic doors, Roy immediately recognises the tall, red brick buildings of Mercer University Hospital. He's in the grounds. It's after dark. How the hell long was he passed out for? He looks around and, by the street lamps lighting the hospital campus, he makes out a few soldiers, but no one he recognises. The hospital itself, thank goodness, seems to have escaped the destruction of the day.

Right. He needs his people, and a telephone.

Behind him, the doors to the clinic swing open. It's Breda, and Lieutenant Catalina. They jog towards him.

"Chief! Sir!" Breda comes to a halt, and snaps a salute that's only vaguely sloppy. Catalina does the same.

"Is that coffee?" says Roy, pointing to the paper cup in his hands. "I'm requisitioning that."

"How are the eyes, sir?" says Breda drily, holding out the cup. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Roy gives him a big, annoying grin, and confiscates the coffee.

Breda digs a crumpled, folded piece of paper from his pocket and hands it over. "Briefing, sir. Sorry about the chickenscratch, I didn't know you'd have to read my handwriting."

He needs both hands to unfold the paper, so he instinctively goes for the caffeine first. The coffee is lukewarm and crappy, but it's black and strong. Roy gulps down about half of it in one go. _That's not going to do you any good_ , says Hawkeye in his head. _You need fruit, protein and a glass of water._

"The lieutenant!" He's an idiot for forgetting, even for a minute. He doesn't even know how badly off she was at the end of the battle. She claimed she was fine, but she always lies like a dog about things like this, and he couldn't see her to check for himself. "What's Lieutenant Hawkeye's condition?"

"She's doing okay, sir," says Catalina. Roy must look sceptical, because she adds, "No, she is, I've been with her. They fixed up her neck. She's pretty worried about you."

Roy resists the urge to sprint to her room. She's fine. She's fine, and so he can do what she'd want him to anyway and keep moving. "Lieutenant Catalina, go give her an update."

"Yes, sir!" Catalina's salute is sharp this time, and then she turns on her heel and sprints off herself in the direction of the main building. Roy finds himself suddenly liking her a little better.

***

In an empty office, Roy leans on a desk while the trooper holding the field telephone stands to attention. Breda stands at the door, watchful.

"Fuhrer Grumman's office," says a tinny female voice at the other end of the line. Roy doesn't like the sound of that. The old man has moved surprisingly fast. He's on the verge of retirement, though - surely he'll be glad to relinquish the responsibility? Roy knows already that with Grumman, you can never tell.

The phone is fumbled at the other end for a moment. Then Grumman's voice, far too jolly for a day like today, says, "Hello, Brigadier General."

Roy blinks. "No, it's me. It's Mustang here."

"I know it is, my boy. I promoted you," says Grumman, sounding highly amused with himself.

Something about this doesn't fit. "Weren't you told? I was planning to retire."

"I know you were. So, how are you feeling this evening?" So, someone has told Grumman about Roy's recovery already?

Roy sighs. "Slight headache, but I'm back to twenty-twenty vision." This is an exaggeration. It's a painful effort to focus, but this is improving already - and something he can't pin down tells Roy he shouldn't show any weakness right now.

"I'm delighted to hear it. I'm going to have a lot of work for you to do."

 _Shit._ That's it. Grumman knew Roy was going to recover, but he has started settling himself into the Fuhrership anyway. He's definitely not intending to step aside in Roy's favour, then. _Shitshitcrap._

"Yes, about that," Roy begins.

Grumman cuts him off. "I've had congratulations pouring in from the understudies, you know."

Grumman has just done perhaps the worst thing he could have done: he's said something Roy knows to be true. The understudies are their code word for the lower ranks of the brass. The top tier are almost all gone, Roy knows from Breda's scribbled briefing. What Grumman means is, _I can unite the old guard and the reformers. I can sneak reform through and still look like a good old boy. You can't._

Grumman giggles into the silence on Roy's end of the phone line.

Roy tries again. "Look," he says, "this isn't exactly how we planned things."

"Actually, I think this arrangement's going to work out nicely. You're terribly young, don't you think a twenty-nine year old Fuhrer would be a tad unnerving for us old people?"

"I'm thirty-one this summer," Roy says, and then realises he sounds exactly like the petulant little kid Grumman's treating him as. Roy has known Grumman since he was four years old. That's what he blames for this nonsense. To be honest, that's exactly how Roy feels like acting now. He wants to stomp his foot and whine about this to his mother, and have her say something sharp to him, but intervene on his behalf anyway.

"Don't be disappointed, my boy," says Grumman cheerfully. "You've got a long and illustrious career ahead of you. Why not pace yourself a bit, eh? And let Amestris pace herself too, while you're at it."

Irritation throbs at Roy's temples - but he catches the hint. Grumman's pushing seventy now, he wouldn't be Fuhrer forever. Roy's considered the slow route to power and change before, and decided he didn't like it. But he didn't see this coming. The old man believes he's right, and he has a solid case for it.

More to the point, possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Roy exhales heavily. "We'll need to discuss this properly. Do you have time to talk now?"

"Goodness me, no! Don't worry, everything's quite under control with the country. And I think we've both achieved quite enough for today, don't you? I'm going to have a hot dinner, a long bath and a good night's sleep. I suggest you do the same."

Roy resists a powerful urge to throw the telephone receiver across the room. He pushes his lips together and breathes in through his nose. "I'd like to talk terms."

"Yes," says Grumman, "I know you would." He laughs again. "Dash, dash, dash - I have no idea where you get the energy! Look, I always find the telephone a terrible medium for this sort of discussion. And I couldn't possibly travel tonight, today has been terrible for my digestion. I'm going to be on a private train to Central first thing tomorrow morning. I'll be with you before nine."

Roy leans more heavily against the desk - and then suddenly Breda has left his station at the door and is holding out a chair for him. Roy sinks into it, nods his thanks, and tries to summon up just a bit more energy from his dwindling reserves. This is workable. This is a position from which he can move forward. Grumman's coming to Central, and then - they'll talk.

"Goodnight, Brigadier General," says Grumman, gently but firmly. "Get some sleep."

"Good evening - your Excellency."

 _God-fucking-dammit._

  


***

Hawkeye has her own room. When he knocks on the door, he half-expects to find her out for the count. She is, of course, sitting up in bed, barking into a field telephone. Hayate sits by her, resting his head on her thigh. Roy catches her say, "No, you _can_ afford adequate guarding for men who endangered the whole country. Ten more men on it, minimum. Yes, Captain, I _will_ tell you how to do your job if you're not d-"

His appearance at the door shuts her right up. Which is amazing, and gratifying, and he'll have to tease her about it later - but right now he's too full of the utter flood of joy and relief at seeing her like this. She has a thick dressing on the side of her neck, and an adhesive bandage on her chin, but she's practically whole, full of life enough to be telling off a superior officer over the phone. When he last laid eyes on her, she was covered in her own blood, dangerously weak. As she supported him and led him through that last battle, as they held each other up, there was a constant pang of fear at the back of his mind: how injured was she really? He was dizzyingly relieved when she stayed standing after the fight was done.

"Ten more men, Captain," she says, and drops the phone back on its cradle without taking her eyes off Roy. He gets across the room quicker than he knows how, sits on the edge of the bed and wraps her into a tight hug. They stay like that for a while. "Riza," he mutters.

She starts at hearing her first name. Hawkeye doesn't do first names with many people. Back when he was her father's apprentice, he was always Mr. Mustang, even when they were fumbling together in the garden shed. He was Mr. Mustang after the funeral, when she was still Riza to him and he copied a circle from her naked back. And in the army, he's always been "sir."

"What do I have to do," he murmurs, "to merit first name terms?"

"How are your eyes?" she asks, face still pressed into his shirt.

"Better." Then there's a whine and a small canine nose pressed into his side at a ticklish spot. Roy jumps and lets Riza go. Hayate is turning in tiny circles on the bed, making high, excited noises. Roy puts a hand out for him to sniff, and then plays with his ears.

"Rebecca brought him from the radio station," she says. "I'm fairly sure it's against hospital rules." Hayate jumps in her lap, bounces, then curls against her, his entire rear end wagging. Roy shakes his head and laughs.

"So," says Roy, "how far did Catalina get you up to speed?"

"Lieutenant General Grumman has taken the Fuhrership." Master Hawkeye was not on speaking terms with his father-in-law, so Riza didn't meet him until she was grown. Roy's never once heard her call the old man _grandfather_.

Roy nods. "Grumman isn't letting his prize go. But I'm thinking about this. It might not be a disaster. You've got Breda's list of who's been cleared out of the brass, right? We're looking at a new bunch. The young and the second-stringers."

Riza frowns. "Quite a few old-fashioned types. But I think there are some we can win over."

"Grumman thinks he can impress as a safe pair of hands. You see where I'm going with this?"

"With General Armstrong dead …" Riza pauses to consider. Her eyelids droop, and she visibly shakes herself. "When Grumman retires, you'd be the obvious candidate to succeed him. You've been his protégé for years."

Cogs are beginning to turn in Roy's mind. He paces, feeling his own energy levels starting to drop. "Grumman wouldn't turn things upside down immediately. He likes to move slowly and steadily. He would be more of a transitional figure. He's right that the old guard like him. He speaks their language. They would accept him, and he'd get the country ready to accept me. It could work."

"And there's a promise attached to your sight, isn't there? You don't have to wait until you reach the top to take care of it. If you were to take charge of the East - if you were to propose to him this rebuilding of Ishbal …"

"Yes. We make that our first task, and meanwhile, we plan for the future."

"But we're assuming that Grumman is thinking along the same lines. Isn't that a big if?"

"A succession deal …" Roy turns the idea over in his mind. He sits on the end of the bed. Sitting feels good right now. The room is starting to swim a little.

"As in, five years and then he retires and hands over to you? You'll need to negotiate."

Roy nods, and rubs his temples. "We'll start tomorrow, then, as soon as he arrives. He's coming to Central by a private train first thing in the morning."

Riza raises an eyebrow. "I say, we meet his train, take the long route to Central Headquarters and talk in the car."

The adrenaline rush is finally leaving him. Roy is starting to realise this really can't be done tonight. "I'm exhausted," says Roy. "Breda got a cup of coffee from somewhere, but I should make him find me another."

"That isn't going to do you any good," says Riza. "You need fruit, protein and a glass of water."

Roy snorts at her. She swats at his arm. Roy has rarely seen her so relaxed. Then she yawns hugely, and fails to suppress it.

"Shape up, soldier," says Roy. "You've only been awake for thirty-six hours, staged a coup, fought a bunch of monsters and nearly died a few times. It's not as if you've had a tough day."

Riza gives him that sneaky smile of hers. Then she yawns again, openly. "Right," she says. "I suppose … bed."

"Mmm." Roy nods.

Riza returns the nod, absently stroking Hayate's ears.

Roy stands, trying not to wobble, approaches the head of the bed and hugs her again. She returns the hug. "Thank you … " he mutters. "Did I say thank you? For everything."

"Yes, back at the tents," says Riza.

"Once more can't hurt. I can't say it enough. I can't …" Roy cuts himself off. He can see the point at which he's going to become sappily incoherent, and it's really right now.

He lets her go and waves from the door. "Goodnight, Riza."

"Goodnight. Mr Mustang." She's far too witty for someone who's been awake so long. He chuckles, and closes the door to let her sleep.

***

Illustration by [](http://almost-british.livejournal.com/profile)[**almost_british**](http://almost-british.livejournal.com/). Go leave a comment for her [here!](http://almost-british.deviantart.com/#/d3d6wag)

***

Roy intends to go straight to bed, in fact he can't imagine having the energy for anything else. But then he hears a familiar, gravelly little chuckle coming from a nearby room, another voice answering it - and he finds he has the energy for one last call.

Like Riza, of course they couldn't be asleep. The soldier on the door nods to Roy, and steps aside.

One bed is empty. Fullmetal is sitting cross-legged on the other bed, no worse than Roy has seen him after too many other fights: festooned with dressings and right arm gone. That's it, then: he'll have automail for life. Edward doesn't look remotely dismayed by this outcome, though, and Roy can see the reason right next to him. Sitting up in the bed is a boy roughly Edward's height but only about half as broad, with the same big amber eyes and mane of blond hair: Alphonse. It's unbelievable.

When Roy enters the room, Fullmetal looks at him and gives a soft little snort, with no malice in it, and his mouth quirks up at the corner. Alphonse just stares at him with those enormous eyes, and smiles.

"I see Alphonse turned out better looking than you," says Roy.

"Hey, you can see!" says Al. His voice is scratchy, and deeper than Roy was expecting. It doesn't sound like him at all.

Fullmetal is looking at his face sharply, assessing, cogs turning in his mind. "Marcoh?" he guesses.

Roy nods. For some reason, he finds he wants to justify himself to the brothers, to explain why he and Marcoh did what they would not.

Alphonse nods himself, firmly, and says, "That's good." It's surprising: but then, there's always been something about Alphonse that's hard to predict.

"I see you managed to trash the arm, again," says Roy to Fullmetal. "I swear that thing spends more time off than on."

"Asshole smashed up the brace, too," says Ed casually, as if the Homunculus was just some street thug he'd got into a scrap with. "My mechanic's gonna kill me."

"Just so long as she does it when I'm out of the room," says Al. He's lost his permanent poker face now, so instead he's wearing a mischievous, tell-tale grin. "If I hear moaning through the door, I'll just leave you guys alone."

Fullmetal pulls a magnificent face. Roy laughs. Then Al joins in with a scratchy little chuckle, and Ed gives Al a look of outraged betrayal.

Alphonse's eyelids drop for a moment, then flutter up. He makes a small, confused sound and looks inward for a moment, and then says slowly, "I think I'm falling asleep again." He sounds fascinated with the whole idea. "Sorry about that, Colonel."

"Brigadier General," corrects Roy as Al nestles himself down into the blankets, now smiling blissfully.

Ed looks at him sharply. "Why isn't it Fuhrer?"

"Grumman gazumped me. Don't worry, though, in due course I still _fully_ intend to make you pay back what you owe me." Roy will tell Fullmetal about the deal another time, he thinks to himself. Then he wonders why he feels such a need to explain himself to Ed? What's the power of that odd little promise between them? Is it because to him, Ed is the next generation whose happiness they're struggling for? Or is it the man himself? It's an unfamiliar thought, but it can't be denied. Edward is no longer a scrappy, blustering little creature sadly shouldering a grown man's responsibilities. When did he grow up? It makes Roy feel old.

Ed himself just looks at Roy while he thinks all this, and after a moment, Roy realises he's sizing Roy up with quiet concern. "You sure you're all right?"

Roy wonders if Fullmetal is referring to the eyes or to the Fuhrer's seat. Roy nods his head vaguely with a hum of affirmation.

After a few moments, Ed says, firmly, "Good. How's Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

"Energetic," says Roy. Except for the part where she's sleeping soundly now, and the thought of it, together with Alphonse's even little snores, is making Roy remember his own exhaustion.

"Get some rest," says Ed, "you look like shit. I bet you've got an assload of stuff to do tomorrow."

"Your concern moves me," says Roy. "You should rest up yourself. You're going home to a pretty girl, you'll need your energy." Ed's lower lip sticks out, but he doesn't even bother denying the innuendo. "You should take her something," Roy adds. "A souvenir from the battlefield. It's not tasteless, she'll think it's meaningful."

"I'm taking her Al," says Ed.

"That'll do," says Roy cheerfully. "I'm granting you some leave, by the way." In case Fullmetal thought he'd somehow automatically quit. Roy can think about whether to really release him from his contract later on, when he knows if he'll need his help.

Ed's mouth drops open. But instead of snapping off a comeback, he just shakes his head and laughs. Roy catches his eye and finds himself laughing too. Then he fails to suppress a yawn, so he just raises his hand in farewell and wanders out the door. Ed's chuckles follow him out.

***

When Roy is woken by a nervous trooper at six o'clock in the morning, he realises that first, he's still dressed, and then that he has no memory of even going to bed. He evidently got as far as taking his boots off before collapsing. He scrubs a hand through his hair and makes a mental list of things he has to do before Grumman's arrival at nine. Breakfast and conference with Riza, then he'll get a car to HQ, a shower, a shave and a fresh uniform, run a comb through his hair, attempt to look a little more like a human being. Riza and Breda will get messages to his people. He'll collar Miles in person when he arrives with Grumman, take the temperature of Briggs. He'd be a natural for the Ishbal rebuilding programme, if he'll accept the transfer.

As he knocks on Riza's door, he realises it doesn't even hurt to use his hands. The headache remains, but he can't exactly complain.

"Come in," she calls. He takes the breakfast the trooper has found him, and enters.

Riza evidently hasn't been awake long, which is good because it suggests she's slept properly. There's a tangled puff of blonde hair on the crown of her head. Hayate is curled at her side.

"Private Fieseler found a worker's café that was open for the rescue crews. He's going to be getting transfer papers to my team." Roy puts two paper cups on the table by Riza's bed, sits in the chair next to it, then opens up the paper bag he's been holding under his elbow. "Two bacon sandwiches with ketchup. That's fruit and protein." She gives him a look. "Ketchup counts as fruit."

"It does if you're an eight year old boy, sir."

"Here," says Roy, digging some paper sachets of sugar from the bag. "Put some of this in your tea: you need it. And you don't have to 'sir' me, we're in private."

Riza sighs, and tips some sugar into her cup. "You're not going to let this go, are you? Sir." There's an impish little smile on that face as she says the last word.

"Nope. How did you sleep, Riza?"

"Decently. The neck didn't bother me much, I suppose I just needed the sleep."

He passes her a sandwich, then digs out his own and takes a big bite. He's starving. "Last thing I had to eat was that apple Ross gave me in the truck yesterday morning. You?"

Riza considers it for a moment. "I have no idea. I had some toast when I fed Hayate …" She puts her head on one side. "The day before yesterday." Hayate investigates her sandwich, and she lifts it out of his reach. "Hayate, stop. Go lie down." The little dog follows her finger, and goes to lie at the end of the bed. His eyes are appealing. "Ignore the begging," she says. "Apparently the night nurse gave him some stewed steak."

Roy laughs. "He got fed before we did. Did Grumman promote him to general in the night?"

"Ah, yes," says Riza. "I'm a captain now. I forgot to mention yesterday." She takes a big bite of her sandwich, without adding 'sir'.

"Nepotism," says Roy.

"Business," says Riza. "Do we know what time Grumman's train gets in yet?"

"It hasn't left yet, I'm expecting Miles to call and confirm any minute. Grumman's probably made them late fussing about something or other, he hates travelling."

Riza gives him a look that says plainly _stop sulking_. Roy sighs.

There's a knock on the door. The guard says through the door, "Sir, Corporal Patterson with a delivery of flowers."

"Come in." He reaches into his pocket for the spare gloves Breda found him, and sees Riza's hand sneaking under her pillow. But it is indeed a soldier carrying a fat bunch of purple flowers. "Why, Patterson," says Roy, "I didn't know you liked me so much." He sees the guard at the door repress a snicker. "Or are they for the lovely captain?"

Patterson keeps his poker face. "They're for you, sir, there's a note. Delivered by an old lady a couple of minutes ago," he says. _Olivia Armstrong_ , Roy thinks automatically. This was their established way of communicating in code. Then he remembers that she's dead, so this can't be from her.

Roy gets up, takes the flowers and notices the small white envelope poking out of the bouquet. Then he looks up to see a sergeant standing in the doorway, with a field telephone on his back. He's holding the receiver. "Major Miles for you, sir," he says, proffering the receiver. Roy walks over to him, takes it, and motions the sergeant back into Riza's room. When Riza sees them entering, Roy stepping backwards into the room, the sergeant shuffling after him, her mouth twitches.

"Mustang," says Roy.

"Sir," says Miles. His voice sounds horribly strained. The loss of Major General Armstrong must be hitting him hard. "Sir, Fuhrer Grumman was found collapsed in his office a few minutes ago and couldn't be roused. The medics have just pronounced him dead."

Riza's mouth has stopped twitching.

"It's a suspected heart attack," Miles continues. Riza hops out of bed and walks towards Roy.

"No named successor?"

"No, sir." Riza has taken the envelope from his hand. She holds it up in front of him, so that he can see the small, stylised rose printed in the corner. He pulls in a breath.

The card reads: _Congratulations on your promotion. Take care of the girls and make sure that they get well soon. My love to your mother, Maria x_

It's a message from the dead after all. Maria is Grumman.

"Oh god," says Riza very quietly. "He knew."

And people don't generally send words of farewell just before they drop unexpectedly dead of a heart attack, do they? Grumman sent this message knowing, or guessing, that he was about to die. And he filled it with code.

 _There has been a murder_ , says the voice of a radio detective in Roy's head. He sags against the wall, and imagines Grumman's chuckles joining Roy's own quiet, hysterical laughter.

***

Illustration by [](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/profile)[**dreamer1789**](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/). Go leave a comment for her [here!](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/83133.html)


	3. Chapter 3

  
Three hours after the death of Fuhrer Grumman, Roy sits around a table of high-ranking officers, making frantic calculations in his head.

It's at times like this that Roy finds himself cursing, just for a moment, the human limits of his body. If he hadn't lost last night to exhausted sleep, could he have anticipated this turn of events? Perhaps even have saved Grumman's life? This is the sort of time that Roy has sometimes found himself seeing one of Alphonse Elric's advantages in life: to be a sleepless, ever-watchful sentinel, sword-proof and hollow, perfectly gifted to be a protector. But no - Alphonse, miraculously, is frail and human now, and Roy could never wish the boy's former fate upon anyone. No matter how handy it might come in for playing politics.

Over the last sixteen hours, Roy's people took command of Central, organising rescue crews and emergency services at his direction. While they saved lives and kept the city running, the soldiers of Briggs had rounded up the remnants of the brass, and Roy's old Ishbal comrades tried to separate the guilty from the slightly less guilty from the merely suspicious. It's growing obvious that during these crucial hours, someone else was very busy too.

And this morning, while Roy and Riza attempted to calm and unite a fragmented, panicking military and to launch a secret murder investigation, Major General Hakuro was speeding towards Central on the Presidential train that should have carried Fuhrer Grumman, telephoning allies as he went.

Now Roy finds himself sitting in a divided room. Tentative supporters of reform and of Roy are emerging, starting to show their growing confidence in him. Meanwhile, sympathisers of the old guard, their faith in the Bradley regime so brutally smashed, are already looking towards Hakuro as an uncorrupted vessel for military rule and the power they're desperate to retain. This morning, the more this mess of an emergency government fights to agree on the nuts and bolts of running the country, the more Roy realises that the military is now poised on a knife-edge. Everyone in this room must be asking themselves the same question now: who will be Fuhrer, Mustang or Hakuro?

Roy always thought of Hakuro as a mediocre officer, lacking in initiative. Grumman always dismissed the man as an anally retentive lackey who'd hauled himself up the ranks by toeing the line. It seems that they both underestimated the man.

On the other hand, at least now Roy has a prime suspect.

***

Item number one on the agenda is the size of a mouse. He lies curled in the palm of the former First Lady of Amestris, his tiny mouth sucking on the nozzle of the eyedropper full of milk she holds. Ignoring the room full of officers, uncaring of how far from ordinary this is, she stares only at him, with the soft, besotted gaze of any new parent.

For a good minute, the officers around the table just gawp. The ones at the back are standing, craning their necks to get a better look. They look like rubberneckers at a crime scene - which, in a way, is exactly what they are.

"This," says Roy, "is the reality of what's happened. You've heard what the Homunculus did: the children he created, what he tried to do to this country, and who helped him do it. We can spin it all we like for the people" - _for now_ , he thinks - "but we, in this room, we need to know the truth."

Brigadier General Fosco is white as paper. Two days ago, he thought he was working his way towards a seat at the table of scoundrels, and until five minutes ago, he was ignorant of the truth about this country. When he first saw the little homunculus, in the middle of a sip of tea, he choked so hard that for a moment Roy thought he was going to swallow the teacup. Fosco says, "I don't agree. Further discussion of this ought to be restricted to the brass. Surely that's plain?"

"Restricted to whom?" says Roy. "We're the top of this country's military now. We _are_ the brass. Without a standing Fuhrer, this information can't get any more secret."

There are murmurs at that, nods of assent, a few shocked faces. Some of the officers around the table seem more on the ball than others. Roy is taking a mental note of which of them.

Riza stands behind Mrs Bradley, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. She's officially there to keep Mrs Bradley calm, but Roy hopes the other point of Riza's presence in the meeting is taken: where Brigadier General Mustang goes, Captain Hawkeye will go.

Finally, Roy's eyes turn again to Major General Hakuro. From the stunned and horrified expression on his face, it's clear that what he claims is true: that Hakuro was innocent as a newborn of any knowledge of the homunculi. Very useful information. Although, Roy thinks as he looks again at the tiny homunculus happily wriggling his baby limbs, that was probably the wrong turn of phrase here.

Hakuro clears his throat, plainly gearing up to start directing everyone, to wrest informal chairmanship of this meeting back from Roy. They've been grabbing the floor from each other, back and forth, since the start of the meeting, like two small boys who can't share a toy. "To move to the question of what we're going to _do_ with the surviving, uh, creature -"

"Please keep your voices down," says Mrs Bradley with calm, maternal firmness, to the roomful of officers who hold her life in their hands. "You'll upset the baby."

***

The soldier bearing the field telephone full of bad news has saluted and left the hospital room. Roy pulls in a breath, then another. Riza sits down on the edge of the bed, fingers winding around the bouquet in her lap. Roy comes and sits next to her, then puts his hand on her wrist.

She looks up. She looks uncharacteristically confused, a little lost, and oddly young. "It's - a suspicious death, at the very least, even if there wasn't this message," she says quietly. "We're dealing with an assassination, aren't we?"

"I agree."

"We'll need to move fast." She frowns, and visibly draws herself in. The slack muscles of her face tighten, and she becomes Captain Hawkeye again. Grumman is - was - her grandfather, the last surviving member of her family of birth. In other circumstances, Roy's first thought would and should be of her. But right now, there's the whole country to think about.

Roy watches her rapidly reread the card that came with the flowers.

 _Congratulations on your promotion. Take care of the girls and make sure that they get well soon. My love to your mother, Maria x_

Maria is straightforward enough: that's Grumman's oldest code-name - and according to Roy's mother, his alter-ego and hobby too. Messages from Maria always hide coyly phrased secrets, business in the guise of flirtation. _Congratulations on your promotion:_ a double meaning, and a wry joke. The very idea that Grumman could joke and tease at the hour of his death is so typical of him that Roy feels his throat contract. _Not now_ , he tells himself.

"Girls?" Riza is frowning. Her mind, like his, is trying to tune into the code.

"You and Amestris. He's used that phrase before." Roy runs a hand through his hair.

"Funny," says Riza, not sounding as though she finds it funny at all. "But I can't see any more in this."

Roy nods. "It's a goodbye. And he passes the torch. But I don't understand. Why isn't there more _information_?"

Riza undoes the bow that holds the flowers in their white paper wrapping. Together, they pick through the bouquet. They examine the paper and the ribbon, they hold the envelope and the card up to the light. There's really nothing else.

"Dammit," says Roy suddenly, explosively. "There must be more. Why wouldn't he give us more?"

Riza looks him in the eye. Her lap is full of purple flowers. "Whether we've grasped the code or not - whether it was a murder or not - we still need to get moving. Now."

And so they do.

***

It's been a tiring morning. The throb of pain behind Roy's eyeballs intensified steadily over the course of the meeting, and Riza looked increasingly pale and uncomfortable.

Now they stand in the private room of an old-fashioned restaurant that Roy was mildly amazed to find open for business today amid the citywide chaos. Roy follows Riza's assessing gaze around the small room's dark panelled walls and yellowing prints, to the square table set for two in the centre.

"Yes," says Roy, "I'm sure it's safe. This is one of my mother's places. The proprietor owes her a substantial favour. Hughes and I used to use it a lot."

"I remember hearing," Riza says softly. She checks her watch. "Do we have time for this?"

Roy pulls out a chair for her. She flicks her eyes skywards, and he grins annoyingly. "Look, we need to debrief somewhere secure. We also need to eat lunch. Private room, _menu rapide_. It's a completely sensible solution."

Riza gives him that look again. "Back on form already," she says, smiling and shaking her head. Then she winces, and mutters, "Stitches." She opens up the catches of her uniform jacket, then reaches a careful hand in. There's a scratchiness to her voice that Roy doesn't like. How deep did that cut go through her neck, before the little princess knit it together? Clan loyalties be damned, Roy is never going to be able to crack another Chang joke. He mentally apologises to the shades of his Qiongya clan ancestors.

The first few minutes of their lunch are all business. The assassination, unmentioned, is a quiet presence behind all their talk of provisional government and disaster relief. By the time Roy and Riza's steak and gratin potatoes have arrived, they've moved on to going over the meeting's results. The new brass seem to be accepting the truth about Fuhrer Bradley, although many of them showed signs of being unable to take in the whole situation in its enormity: their country was created to die, to be fuel for an alchemical monster. Mrs Bradley will retain care of the little homunculus for the moment. They're under guard at a townhouse the military keeps for visiting officers. The remnants of the old brass will be court-martialled. Efforts to save them are vain. Some died yesterday, and some are missing. Roy suspects that one or two will have managed to slip out of the country in this chaos. Sadly, they can't be the first priority right now.

The new brass is as divided upon the question of Roy as Grumman predicted they would be. Roy is irrationally furious with the old man: both for being right and for going and dying like that.

"I made the wrong call, didn't I?" Roy rubs his hand across his face. "I thought the old guard would take advantage of my vulnerable spots, that I wouldn't have learnt how to guard myself … but they just took advantage of Grumman's instead." He knows he's being self-indulgent, but he can't not say it. "If I hadn't handed him the Fuhrership, he'd still be alive."

Riza seems uncomfortable with this whole line of thinking. "Anyone in that position would be a target. You know that."

"What do you think? Honestly?"

"I would have supported you, if you'd taken the Fuhrership." Roy must look really pathetic right now, because she gives him that look, the little smile and the kind eyes. "It's too easy to play these games, though, isn't it?" she says softly. "If Grumman hadn't been assassinated, you'd be thanking serendipity and saying that letting him pave your way was by far the best route, and that you wished you'd thought of it sooner."

"You really do know me too well."

"'What if' games … " She shakes her head. This conversation is so close to the bone, to the old core of their partnership: that unwise gift she'd given him so long ago, and what they decided afterwards. She means, Roy thinks, _'what if' is pointless. What if I'd waited to make you the Flame Alchemist, what if I'd given you my father's work when you'd grown up enough to be trusted with it? What if you'd listened to your mother and hadn't joined the army, what if I'd gone to university instead of officers' academy, what if we'd met again in a bookshop instead of on a battlefield?_

Roy looks ahead of himself, at the bad painting on the opposite wall. What if they'd never discovered the rotten heart of the military? If they'd stayed innocent, would someone else have found it? Would someone else have carried their sin and their responsibility? And would someone else have found a circle full of blood in the cellar of a house at the edge of a one-horse town? Would anyone but them have seen beyond the taboo and the penalty and have made that strange offer to the brothers who yesterday saved Amestris from the demon that created her?

"I know." Roy finally says. There's a lengthy, fruitful moment of silence. "Once a soldier starts to second-guess everything - it's not good. We have to keep moving forward."

She nods.

"And that," says Roy, "leads us to the next task. We're both thinking the same thing about Fuhrer Grumman's death. If Hakuro had him killed, I can use that information to take power. We need to root out the truth about this."

"They'll be trying to bury it." says Riza. "So we'll have to get to it first. Roy." He looks up too sharply, still surprised to hear his first name in her voice. She smiles a little awkwardly. "It just occurred to me. We'll want our people staying in one place, things as they are. Unless that would make us too straightforward a target?"

Roy shakes his head. "No. That's too bold a move for Hakuro. We should be concerned about assassination, but not like that. Together, we'll present too much of a threat."

"Right, then. I think we should commandeer a medium-sized hotel. We can sweep the building, secure it, and be able to talk in private."

The idea is an excellent one. There are so many things to be discussed and decided. They can put others to work on this code, too. Breda's good with crosswords. Perhaps he might see something they've missed?

"Riza?" he says. "Are you - how are you doing?" It suddenly occurs to him how much less intrusive it would have felt to ask _Captain, how are you?_

"All right," she says. "I haven't really had time - we'll just keep moving." She looks down. Frankness feels strange. But wouldn't it be just as strange to return to their old habits, after everything yesterday brought to them? "You know," Riza says, "Lieutenant General Grumman and I never got to know each other so well. Back in East City, he'd invite me to lunch sometimes. But with everything that's been going on," and her voice quietens very slightly, "I hadn't seen him in a long while."

Roy reaches out, impulsively, and squeezes her hand. His healed wound twinges. Riza looks up, eyes a little round with surprise, but then she gives him a little smile, squeezes back gently, and lets go.

From somewhere outside, a clock chimes the hour, and it's time to return for round two.

***

The new brass's afternoon session ran even longer than Roy had anticipated, so in the end, he gets to Parliament Hall at sunset, ten minutes after Major Miles' time on General Armstrong's honour guard has ended. The hall has been closed to the public now, but Roy still has to make his way through a silent crowd to enter. At the gate, he passes piles of flowers that rise to his shoulder. Who knew that General Armstrong was so loved outside of Briggs? Perhaps she wasn't, until yesterday. Heroes are quickly made in this country. Roy should know.

Miles, however, turns out to be still in the hall. As soon as Roy enters, he spots the flash of white hair, the sunglasses worn even in a dark room. He's sitting on a bench at the edge of the room, facing towards the coffin, with his head bowed in his hands. If it wasn't so antithetical to the Briggs spirit, Roy might have thought he was praying.

Major Miles and General Armstrong were as close as they seemed, then. Perhaps even as close as rumour has it? But Roy knows what it's like to be dogged by rumour, and to speculate now about the nature of Miles' loss seems somehow indecent.

Roy approaches the bier. Four soldiers in the Briggs uniform stand at each corner, facing outwards. Roy doesn't know any of them, but he notes that one of them is a captain: like Miles, he is too high-ranking to be doing this job, but yet here he is. Roy stands to attention, snaps a salute to the coffin. Then, in the absence of anyone else present able to grant him permission, he gives himself leave to stand at ease.

General Armstrong has been laid out in the dress uniform, not the Briggs uniform. He's sure she wouldn't have chosen that, for all that the long tunic and trousers gives her a Fuhrer-like air. Her clothes have been chosen to make her look more like a hero of the people than the Wall of Briggs. The spinning of her death has begun - and from the looks of things outside Parliament Hall, it's succeeding. Her hair has been left down. That's against protocol - it always was. _Hair that reaches below the collar should be worn tied or pinned._ Apparently, no one ever dared to correct her, and it seems no one dares still. Even dead, it seems she can't quite be controlled. Roy looks at the sword hilt clasped in her hands. He can't help but notice that this isn't the beautiful antique sabre she wore everywhere - the weapon, presumably, which killed Bradley. It's just a plain dress sword. Roy supposes the Armstrong family are going to put the original under glass or something, or perhaps pass it on to the next bloodthirsty generation.

Her closed eyes are sunken, her cheekbones too prominent, her skin sallow and waxy. Roy ought to be unshockable now; but somehow, it still shocks him to see the invincible Major General Armstrong herself so unmistakably dead. Roy realises he hadn't quite believed it, until now.

Roy closes his eyes. He thinks of Olivia Armstrong's bellowing and intransigence, her bluntness and incorruptible honesty, her pride in her men and her hidden cunning. He thinks of the idiotic competitive games she drew him into at joint training, her tactical brilliance and her peculiarly hostile mode of flirting. He can't sum her up.

She might have lived. She might have, but she didn't. Their faction were undoubtedly stronger and safer with her alive, tenuous as the alliance could have been. Perhaps the weak link in the chain, the thing that made their enemies feel strong enough to strike, wasn't Grumman at all. Perhaps it was Armstrong's absence? But that isn't a question for today. _Keep moving forward_ , Roy tells himself. He closes his eyes for a moment, then turns from the bier.

After a few moments, Miles looks up slowly and registers Roy's presence. He stands, salutes the coffin and then salutes Roy. It's the proper order: after all, Armstrong does outrank him.

***

Roy leans forward against the battlement. The roof walkway of Parliament hall: Roy picked a good spot for this conversation. The only access is the steep, worn little spiral staircase they've just schlepped up, so it's private. And they have the spectacular view of the old city to stare at, so Miles can avoid eye contact when he needs to. Roy remembers avoiding people's eyes a lot, in the first few days after Hughes. It helped keep a lid on things.

"Hard to take in," says Roy. "She always gave the distinct impression of being immortal." He supposes that she is now, after a fashion. Being a legend suits her already.

"Not how she saw it," says Miles quietly. "She was always ready. Just like any other soldier."

Hypocritically, Roy nods. He knows how childish it is, but still he's never been able to let go of the idea that none of his people are _allowed_ to die. Not that they always let that stop them.

Miles looks out at the square below them. "So," he says. "The story."

His account is to the point, but impeccably thorough. It reminds Roy oddly of Riza's way with a debriefing. No one entered or left the Fuhrer's office between 0502, when Miles saw him enter, and Miles' knock on the door just before six. When there was no answer, Grumman's secretary advised him to go on in, since the Fuhrer was a little hard of hearing. Roy doesn't comment that in his experience, Grumman's deafness was highly selective.

Inside the office, Grumman was sitting at his desk. At first, Miles thought he was asleep. Then he thought he was unwell. Then he noticed that he wasn't breathing. After the entire staff of East City HQ's infirmary descended, it turned out Fuhrer Grumman was already dead when Miles knocked on his door.

"Suspected massive heart attack,"says Miles. "And there we have it."

"No one entered the Fuhrer's office at all?" asks Roy.

"No."

"And did the Fuhrer seem well when he arrived at five?"

"Perfectly."

"Did he eat or drink anything that you know of?"

"Just a glass of water. I saw his secretary pour it from a jug on her desk. I drank two glasses myself from the same jug. So no luck there, I'm afraid."

Roy watches a woman on a bicycle, two hundred feet below them, wind her way over the flat cobbles of the square. She cycles for a few yards, then stands in the saddle, letting the momentum she built carry her on. That woman died yesterday - if only for a few minutes. So did Grumman. So did Miles, and so did everyone - _everyone_. Before he left the hospital, Roy was already hearing that besides the injured, right now there's an upsurge in heart attacks, strokes, embolisms. So: having your soul sucked out of your body, swirled around a monster's gut and then heaved back into you. Who knew, but apparently it isn't good for the system. Could Grumman simply be one of the unlucky ones? Except for that note.

"Sir," says Miles. Roy startles out of his thoughts and looks up. "However you can use me, I'm here."

Roy hesitates. He'd bring this man onto his team in a second. But doesn't Miles have his own battles to fight? "I imagine," Roy says carefully, "that you might get permanent command of Briggs, things as they are."

Miles' head cants towards him sharply. Then he says, "I've considered that. On the train up to Central, Hakuro wasn't letting me anywhere near his carriage. But I can take a good guess at what he's up to. Am I right, sir?"

Roy nods and gives him a wry grin.

"As highest ranking officer, I command Briggs for now. Briggs is a part of Amestris. The whole takes priority over the part. We've left good men and women holding the wall. The soldiers of Briggs are yours to command, sir." Roy can barely make out his eyes through the sunglasses, but he can still feel the intensity of Miles' stare.

Roy wants to say a lot of things that are probably better left unsaid. After a moment, he pushes off the wall to stand upright, fully facing Miles. "Thank you, Major. I appreciate it. I'll be making use of you, then."

Miles turns to him, salutes, and grins a hard, purposeful little grin.

***

Illustration by [](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/profile)[**dreamer1789**](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/). Go leave a comment for her [here!](http://dreamer1789.livejournal.com/83133.html)

***

"Nice choice of hotel, chief," says Breda from behind the bar. "Shame about the complete lack of staff."

"Captain Hawkeye picked the hotel," says Roy.

" _I_ picked the hotel, sir," corrects Lieutenant Catalina. "The captain delegated." Her grin is cheeky, with a hint of nerves around the edges. Apparently whatever stories Riza told her over the years haven't completely killed her respect for him.

"Classy joint, Catalina," says Breda. He puts a couple of pitchers of lager on the bar, and Fuery hoists them up and trots over to the tables, depositing one on each.

"Lager in a meeting?" says Falman.

"Yup. It's been that kind of couple days," says Breda. "Chief?"

"Oh good," says Roy. "So I still get consulted around here, that's nice, Lieutenant. Yes, I would love a glass, thank you."

Ross and Brosch bring out trays of little beer goblets, jugs of cold lager and water are distributed, tables are moved, and seats are taken.

Roy surveys his kingdom. Everyone from the old team, bar one - although without Havoc's smartass remarks, it can never completely feel like the old team. Major Miles, sitting at a table with four Briggs officers Roy has never met, with his sunglasses off and his eyes fierce and tired. Second Lieutenant Ross, back in uniform, sitting by Sergeant Brosch and Catalina. Charlie, Dino, and the rest of Roy's old Ishbal comrades.

"Where are Fullmetal and Alphonse?" asks Fuery.

"Hospital," says Riza. "And they're staying there."

"So they really did it?" asks Breda. "Huh."

Roy notices the room is quieting. He grins, and raises his voice. "Alphonse is human, and recovering," says Roy. "Fullmetal is much the same, still a cheeky little shit, blew the arm to smithereens yet again. So, yes. I'd say they did it."

"That's - amazing," says Ross, shaking her head. She gives Brosch a jolly little punch on the upper arm, and he grins goofily.

"Good for them," says Major Miles quietly.

Roy lets the babble of voices rise for a few moments. In the midst of this clusterfuck, at least they have one or two miracles to celebrate.

"And where's Major Armstrong?" asks Fuery, turning to Roy again.

"Sorting out his sister's estate," says Riza.

"Oh," says Fuery quietly. "I forgot."

"He only left for Armstrong Manor a couple hours ago: he's been helping out the rescue crews all day," says Breda. "When I found him, he'd just stopped a mansion block from collapsing on Jordan Boulevard."

Roy blinks. "I live off Jordan. Mm. I should probably have someone check my apartment building's still standing."

Breda snorts at him. "Least you've probably _got_ a flat, sir. The rest of us are living out of our kitbags right now."

"I've missed the whining, I really have. Major Armstrong?"

Breda shrugs. "He seemed kind of … stoic. He was pretty quiet, for him." Armstrong, who'll burst into noisy tears because he hasn't seen you in a month. Roy doesn't like it.

Breda continues. "Your hunch about who delivered those flowers was right. The major gave me an address for the lady in question, but we don't have much in the way of new information. She says Grumman telephoned her at about six o'clock in the morning, gave her the order, and hung up. She couldn't even say if he sounded ill or not. No one but radio hosts sounds healthy at that time of morning, she says."

Roy exhales heavily. "Thank you." Then he raps sharply on the table, and calls the meeting to order.

"So," he begins. "I can confirm the basics for you. Yes, Amestris is currently without a standing Fuhrer. Yes, the old brass are all off the board one way or another - but not everyone in the military are our allies. And yes, we suspect that foul play was involved in Fuhrer Grumman's death. We're going to get to the bottom of it. And we're going to win this."

The meeting moves thankfully fast. Riza briefs the room concisely on the rest of the situation, and then everyone else reports in, group by group. It seems that everyone has been keeping themselves nice and busy. With his people around him, Roy is starting to feel a little more like himself.

Afterwards, most of them are dismissed for the night. Roy keeps back his old team, along with Major Miles and Lieutenant Ross.

"Here's what we're looking at," says Roy to the table. "Grumman's assassination - and I'm certain that's what it was - was opportunistic. Someone saw a chance to make their move."

"Hakuro saw a chance," says Major Miles.

"What the new brass want most of all right now is someone in charge who shares Bradley's virtues, but is innocent of his crimes," says Roy. Elbows planted on the table, he laces his fingers together and leans his chin on them.

"So Hakuro jumps in and makes out that an old-fashioned bastard like him is the natural choice to take over, huh?" says Breda.

"Grumman's death is being passed off as natural causes right now," Roy replies. "But if I can prove Hakuro assassinated Grumman, I take away his uncorrupted status -"

"- which will make the Brigadier General the clearest candidate for the Fuhrership," Riza continues smoothly.

"I'll be able to take power without a war," Roy picks up. "Just as we planned."

"Yes," says Riza, "if you can pass yourself off as a vaguely safe pair of hands."

Roy sighs theatrically and decides to move on. "So, working out how this thing was done - and proving it - is our most important task right now. Grumman left us a message" - _which he apparently chose to fill with annoyingly obscure code_ -"and we need it cracked."

Riza fetches the flowers, now wilted. The note is passed around, the paper is held up to the light.

"The note definitely _sounds_ like it's in code," says Breda.

"One of the commonest forms of military code," says Falman, "is to use key phrases with hidden meanings."

"We've got those," says Roy. He runs through them. "But it doesn't tell us anything more."

"Could there be something like invisible ink?" asks Brosch. The look Roy gives him must be a bit more scathing than he means for it to be, because he looks down at his boots and says, "Sorry sir, I guess it shows that I don't really know much about cryptography. Most of the criminals I'm used to dealing with aren't that enormously smart."

"Oh!" says Fuery suddenly. "I just thought. What about that old-fashioned thing, where the type of flower given has different meanings?"

"I think my grandma has a book on that," says Ross. "But, um, she lives five hours out west. And she still thinks I'm dead, so phoning her now might be a bit tricky."

"Everyone's grandma has a book on that," says Breda.

"What about the library here?" asks Fuery. "It looks sort of chintzy, maybe it would have something like that?"

Roy inclines his head. "Off you go, Sergeant. Good work."

Fuery sprints off. By the time he returns, Breda has found some loaves of stale bread, cheese and a vast tub of pickle in the kitchen, and everyone is assembling impromptu sandwiches. Roy looks up from his first bite to see Fuery brandishing the book. The grin on Fuery's face slowly fades into slight mortification at the sudden attention everyone is paying him.

Riza takes the book and flips through it. "Foxgloves," she reads. "Insincerity."

There are a lot of furrowed brows around the table right now.

"That's … " Falman doesn't finish.

"Not exactly helpful," says Breda.

"I suppose," Riza shrugs, "it's appropriate enough. If you took insincerity to mean untrustworthiness, and that to mean betrayal …"

"So the secret message in the code is _I was assassinated_?" asks Roy. He rubs his eyes. "Which we already knew, from the fact that there was a message at all."

"It looks quite complicated," says Fuery. "I mean, there's a whole book of how different combinations mean different things. Maybe we're just reading it wrong?"

***

Two hours later, they're still there, and in much the same position. Fuery is still poring over _The Sentiment of Flowers_. Riza has copied the note and is searching for acrostics and suspicious letter patterns. Falman is reading another book dug out of the hotel library, _Every Schoolboy's Guide to Cryptography_. Miles is sipping tea, and looking like he's thinking. Catalina is doodling. Ross's eyelids keep drooping; Roy's seen her discreetly shaking herself awake at least twice. They are, to be frank, getting a little desperate.

"It still could be that old wives' tale about picking foxgloves offending the fairies," says Breda. "Crime, taboo - it could be like, a metaphor for human transmutation."

"And how's that relevant to anything?" says Roy. He's getting crabbier by the minute now. The pressure is on, and they're getting nowhere. What the hell is the point of leaving a coded message that's too obscure for anyone to understand? Why couldn't the old bird ever, ever do anything the simple way? And on that, it suddenly strikes him again that Grumman really is dead. He shuts his eyes. His headache, clearly tired of him ignoring it all day, surges up to kick him vigorously behind the eyeballs. He tries not to hiss.

"Headache?" asks Riza.

Roy pinches the bridge of his nose. "The whole damn thing's a headache."

Riza suddenly cants her head - that sharp little motion that tells Roy she's seen something he hasn't - and Roy follows her gaze to the bar's door. It's open, and his mother is standing framed in the doorway, suitcase in hand.

She always did know how to make an entrance.

"I heard already," says Madam Christmas. She's been friends with Grumman nearly all Roy's life. Her lips compress briefly. Roy feels a horrible pang, but it's quickly overwhelmed by the gladness and relief of seeing her again, safe and well. He gets up hastily, takes her suitcase and her arm, and walks with her to the table. "I'm not that decrepit," she mutters, but she pats his arm anyway.

"Breda," says Roy, "please get Madam Christmas a good whisky served straight and a tall glass of iced water."

"Make it a single malt, sonny," says Madam Christmas, settling in a chair, "and don't be stingy now. What are we doing here?" She waves a hand over the flowers, the book and the note.

"Fuhrer Grumman had these flowers sent to me a few minutes before he died," says Roy. He hands his mother the note. "I'm sure there's a code, but we're having no luck turning up anything."

"Hmm," she says noncommittally. She puts down the note and picks up a wilting stem of purple flowers.

"We were wondering if the message could be the flowers themselves," continues Roy. "We got this book, on nineteenth-century flower codes, but we can't get anything out of that either. It's frustrating. Why send us this message, but make the code so obscure?"

Madam Christmas gives him that look. She lets it sit for a moment, as she's always liked to do, to impress upon Roy that he's being an idiot. He resists the urge to squirm. "You think it's obscure?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not?"

"Foxgloves," she says slowly, "are poisonous."

"Oh," says Roy. "Well, we never had a garden."

"They're poisonous," she continues, "because they're full of digitalis. It interferes with the heart, slows it down."

"Oh," says Roy.

"However, in small doses, it's useful. Doctors prescribe digitalin for some heart conditions."

" _Oh_ ," says Riza.

"Grumman had been on it for years," Madam Christmas says. "Digitalis doesn't taste so great, though, you can't just dump it into someone's tea."

"They switched his heart medicine," says Roy.

"Yeah, that's where I was going with that, kid," says his mother. "Now how about you get to work proving it?"


	4. Chapter 4

***

Knox's house has changed. Roy remembers dirty dishes, piles of paper and an unidentifiable smell lurking behind the stale smoke. Now it's - well, not exactly pristine, but civilised. The table at which Roy is sitting is stained with coffee and dotted with crumbs, but mostly clear. Knox himself, however, doesn't seem to have changed at all. He helps himself to a chair, picks up the cigarette he was working on before Roy's knock at his door, and doesn't offer a cup of coffee.

"Had a spring-clean?" asks Roy.

"My ex-wife," says Knox. "And the kid. Every time either of them comes around, they insist on cleaning, moving my stuff around. Ends up so I don't know where the hell anything is in my own house." He takes a moment to suck down more of his cigarette. "The only way I can stop them is to square all my crap away as a pre-emptive strike."

"Sounds terrible."

"So," says Knox, "you're here to bother me about Fuhrer Grumman's suspiciously timed passing, right?"

This is Knox here: mincing words would be pointless. Roy nods. "We've got reason to believe he was poisoned."

"What's the official diagnosis? All I'm getting from the radio is _cardiac arrest_." Knox curls his lip.

"As far as I know, the official diagnosis _is_ cardiac arrest."

"What do you actually mean by _cardiac arrest_? _Cardiac_ , heart, _arrest_ , stops. As opposed to all those other kinds of death where the heart just keeps on beating."

Roy tuts. "Why the hell are all doctors such cranky bastards?"

"Because we have to deal with patients," says Knox, looking at him narrowly. "So what exactly was it? Myocardial infarction? Total heart block? Sudden cardiac death? Call me a cranky bastard, but shouldn't they have told the other guy in line to run the country what the Fuhrer died from?"

"Heart attack."

"Myocardial infarction," corrects Knox.

Roy tuts. "Look, fun as it is to play doctor-layman oneupmanship, can we move on?"

"All right," says Knox. "Gimme the facts."

Roy does so. And Knox listens - actually _really_ listens.

"And that's our current theory," Roy finishes. "Grumman was on digitalis, someone switched his meds for a lethal dose of the same drug, and he worked it out in time to send us a message."

"Aha," says Knox. " _The dose makes the poison_." With no apparent sense of irony, he takes a deep drag from his cigarette.

"I see," says Roy. "I think I see. That phrase sounds vaguely familiar."

"It's a quotation. 'All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.'" Knox pulls a book from the nearest bookcase, and hands it to Roy. "Theophrastus, the father of modern toxicology. One of your alchemist lot. What it means is: all chemicals can be classed as poisons in sufficient quantities."

"Would it have been simple to pull off?"

"Sure," says Knox. "A lot of pills have the active ingredients cut with something neutral, so the pill's big enough to swallow. Gimme a second here." He runs a hand along his bookshelves, fingers drumming along the wood. He's becoming oddly animated. After a few moments, he pulls out and opens a thick reference volume. After a few moments of flicking through the pages, he stabs a finger down. "Gotcha. Digitalis. Standard maintenance dose would be 250 micrograms. A whole pill would weigh about two thousand times that."

Roy blinks.

Knox takes another long pull on his cigarette, then blows smoke out of his nostrils like a dragon. "Now," he continues, "if _I_ were going to poison someone, that's how I'd do it. Make up a whole batch of pills with maybe twice the lethal dose each in 'em - because you might as well make sure, right? Then just get ahold of the old geezer's pill case and make the switch. Job done."

Roy doesn't say anything immediately. Somewhere outside, noisy birds chirp at each other.

Knox harrumphs. "Now, I've got a question for you. Say you prove to your own satisfaction the guy was poisoned. How's that going to help you shame the opposition? Can't they just say you're lying?"

"Well, if we do a test for poison, won't the results be reproducible? Someone neutral can test again and confirm our accusation."

"Depends. This stuff gets less accurate the more the body deteriorates. Where's the body?"

"Arriving by special train in Central today. He's going to be under guard in the morgue at headquarters tonight, and then the lying in state begins tomorrow."

"Crap," says Knox, and exhales forcefully.

"What?"

"They'll have embalmed the body already. No blood samples for us."

Roy groans. "Of course." He slams his hand on the table. It twinges, and he hisses a bit.

When Roy looks up, shaking his head in apology, Knox looks far from despondent. On the contrary, he's actually _grinning_. The effect is somewhat eerie. "What?" says Roy.

"Looks like I'm going to have to add another favour to your tab, Mustang," he says. "I've just thought of a workaround." Behind his spectacles, he taps the corner of his eye.

Roy raises a questioning eyebrow.

"Vitreous humour," says Knox with some relish. " _Aka_ eye goo. Embalming doesn't taint the fluids of the eyeball. A sample of that is the best way of testing for poison if your body's already been embalmed."

"Excellent," says Roy.

Knox nods and pouts his lower lip in smug acknowledgement. "So, you just need to get me an eyeball."

It takes Roy a good second to come up with something to say. "Eyeball?" he manages. Roy's own eyes throb in sympathy.

"What?" Knox tuts. The scowl is back again.

"The whole eyeball?"

"You were planning on breaking in and grabbing me a blood sample, right? What's the difference?"

"Fuhrer Grumman's lying in state begins tomorrow! It's an open coffin. Do you not think that anyone will notice if he's one eye down?"

"You can stuff the socket with cotton wool. Or a glass eye … think I got one somewhere or other, damned if I know where." Knox circles his finger and thumb and looks at it assessingly. "Or maybe just a big marble. A walnut?"

A walnut. Roy pinches the bridge of his nose. "All we need's a sample, right? Why can't I just take a syringe and draw a sample? What were you going to ask for if it was a blood sample, the whole arm?"

"Ah, listen to the expert," Knox sneers. "The eyeball's a big bag of fluid. If you puncture it with a syringe, it's gonna leak and sag - that'll be noticeable too. So what's the difference? Why not just do it the simple way?"

"But - do you seriously think I'm going to be able to neatly extract an eyeball? They don't exactly cover that in field medicine training, you know. I'd offer to have you come along with us and bag the sample yourself, but -"

"Damned if I'd go," says Knox.

"Exactly."

Knox stubs his cigarette out with one hand, just as he picks up the packet and thumbs out a new cigarette with the other. "Well," he says. "If you're so set on doing things the hard way, come by this afternoon. I'll get us some pig's eyeballs from the butcher shop and give you a little tutorial on drawing out vitreous humour with a syringe. I'll even show you how to fix up the seepage after. I warn you, it's tricky." Knox sounds surprised at his own generosity. He lights up the new cigarette, and then carries on speaking without taking it from his mouth. "Actually, on second thoughts, get Hawkeye to come over instead. She looks like she's got steady hands."

"You don't think the Flame Alchemist has steady hands?"

"Well, if after everything that's happened, you're going to get all fussy about one goddamn eyeball …" Knox shrugs deeply and pulls the corners of his mouth down. "I need my sample as quick as possible - the longer we go, the less reliable the results. When were you planning on breaking into the morgue?"

"It can't be earlier than tonight. I had the morgue in Central Headquarters' basement discreetly checked out. There'll be people in the same room as Grumman's body right up until the morgue closes. It's guarded in the evening, but outside the doors."

"So how are you planning to get in?" asked Knox. Then, before Roy can say anything, "No, wait, I don't wanna know. You kids have fun with that."

Roy decides to take the high road and ignore him. "Someone will bring the sample to you after we get it. Tonight, if you open the door to a middle-aged lady selling incense, do me a favour and don't send her packing."

***

Well, isn't this the trip down memory lane?

Laboratory Three is half in ruins. With the Briggs contingent guarding it, it's easy enough to get in. The wall that hid the tunnel entrance turns out to be half-collapsed, so Roy doesn't even need to make them a door.

Underground, in the white room with its great double doors, the Immortal Army are exactly where Roy and Riza left them - but they're no longer much of a threat. Burnt limbs, shredded flesh, and bone carpet the room. The air is full of the appalling stench of rot. Both of them are accustomed enough to the smell to just take it without comment and breath through their mouths.

Roy and Riza pick their way through the remains to the huge, carved door, which Roy now knows to resemble a white room elsewhere with its own great pair of doors. The resemblance is probably deliberate; from what Roy saw, the Homunculus was a pompous ass. He doesn't remark as much; this time, Roy doesn't crack a single joke.

Beyond the doors, they make their way down the damp tunnels with map, compass and flashlight. The map came straight out of Bradley's front desk drawer.

Roy and Riza hike on, sticking close together through tunnels which, as the rotting meat smell recedes, begin instead to carry a discernible scent of alchemy. Roy resists the urge to trace his path of two days ago, that frenzied sprint of adrenaline and rage. Instead, he checks Hawkeye's map when they come to a turning, and keeps his eyes ahead. There are surprisingly few visible signs of the fight. That is, until they pass a huge burn mark on the tunnel's right wall, licking all the way up to the tunnel ceiling. Roy doesn't stop walking. Beside him, he knows without looking that Riza has tensed and brought her chin up.

When the tunnel slopes upwards, Riza begins to count her steps. Soon, a flashlight shone on the ceiling shows the intestinal coils of tubing from which the Immortal Army were strung. They're standing in what's innocuously referred to on the map as "Storage Bay D."

"Here," whispers Riza, a couple of minutes later. She checks her map and compass for a moment, looks around her, then puts a hand to the wall to her left and nods decisively. If Riza's calculations are right - which they doubtless are - then Central Headquarters' morgue should be on the other side of the wall Riza has her hand upon.

Now it's time for Roy to make them a door. In the inside pocket of his coat, his hand closes on the packet of chalk. Then he blinks.

He doesn't need the chalk.

Why did he even pack it, when he doesn't need it? The whole of alchemy has opened itself up to him now, a swarming mass of data just below the surface of his conscious mind - and he hasn't even had time to think about that yet. Well, no time like the present. Roy reaches for the right formula in his mind - _and suddenly it's right in front of him, knowledge streaming into his mind and his ears burning and the memory of a cutting white grin full of secrets, and he's been doing it wrong all these years, he can_ see _the molecules now, decomposing and reconstructing themselves and telling him-_

" _Sir_." An urgent, voiceless little hiss. A hand on his shoulder. " _Roy._ Are you all right?"

He blinks, shakes his head, and gives Riza an embarrassed grin. "I think I'll do this the old-fashioned way," he whispers, and pulls out the chalk.

It's still an uncomfortable thing. Roy sketches the formula too quickly, too surely. Before, he was rusty on so much. Transmutations he hadn't performed for years were an effort to recall. He had to go back to his books. This surety and confidence doesn't feel right. He touches his fingers to the circle, and the wall rolls aside quietly and precisely for him.

Riza just gives him a pleased little nod, and steps through. He follows her a step behind, his gloved hand raised. Inside the room, they move through their familiar dance, covering the room back to back with their weapons drawn. It's empty: cold as a cellar, examination table scrubbed clean in the middle, and a lingering smell of formaldehyde and death.

The door is, of course, locked. When Roy had thought of this earlier, the transmutation had rolled into his mind with startling complexity - and then he'd asked his mother to borrow a set of lockpicks. Now he pulls them from his pocket, and finds that he hasn't lost the knack: a few careful turns and the simple mortice lock gives with a satisfying click.

Roy puts a hand to the door, and nods. Riza brings her sidearm up. Through the door, they turn in a circle back to back again, and again they find it empty.

A door on the opposite side of the corridor is marked "Refrigeration: Unauthorised Personnel Not Permitted". Again, Roy twists a pick in the lock while Riza covers him. Again, they scope out an empty room. It's almost a little unnerving, but Roy pushes the thought aside.

This room has large industrial coolers lining two walls with rows of drawers stacked as high as Roy's head. Papers have been hung from the handle of nearly every drawer; the morgue is full today. Taking a unit each, Roy and Riza scan rapidly through the names on each paper. There are many Roy knows: the old brass, soldiers Roy has eaten with, even a secretary who Roy once very briefly dated ("cause of death: blunt trauma from falling masonry"). That gives him a jolt. Then he catches Riza nodding at him; she's found the right drawer.

It's not marked out in any way from the rest, despite the occupant's rank. Roy expected - he doesn't know what, exactly, that Grumman would get his own room? He grasps the handle, and looks at Riza. She nods briskly, but her twitch of a smile thanks him for asking.

Roy pulls gently on the drawer handle, and it rumbles on its castors as it opens.

The sound of it is, in the silent room, quite incredibly loud and jarring.

Roy winces, and stops immediately. Both of them freeze for a moment, listening. No footsteps, no sound at all from outside. With any luck, the guards are too far away, the doors too thick, for them to have heard. After a few seconds, Roy nods and - what can he do? - starts pulling the drawer again, as gently and smoothly as he can.

Again, the rattle of the drawer is noisy and jarring. Once it's open, they both listen again. Silence.

The first thing Roy notices is that Grumman isn't wearing his glasses. He's not sure why. The old man is in the Fuhrer's uniform that alive, he must have gotten only a few hours' wear from. Or did he even? Whatever the case, Grumman's ready for his public tomorrow.

After a few moments, Roy and Riza exchange glances. Then Riza reaches into her vest and unfolds a cloth containing everything he needs. She holds it out for Roy, businesslike as a surgical nurse. Roy strips off his left glove and pockets it, then takes the small syringe and pops the cap from the needle. He allows himself a fraction of a second to feel very slightly sick. Then he takes the tweezers and gently grips the bottom of Grumman's right eyelid at the outer corner. It looks delicate and papery in the grip of the tweezers. Roy recalls Knox's warnings about how horribly easy it is to tear the eyelid of a dead body. He tries not to think that the fate of his whole country could be changed by one slip of the finger. And then finds that he's already thought it. One day, his brain is actually going to do what he tells it to.

Roy pulls the lid up, gently as he can, then very carefully slides the tweezers towards the centre of the eyelid. He lets out a breath when he's managed to do it without damage. Then he pulls in another breath, recalls Knox's instructions and his practice session this afternoon. He ignores Grumman's filmy upward gaze. Then he plunges the needle into the white, holds it steady, and pulls on the plunger with his free hand. A clearish liquid flecked with dark spots fills the small syringe, and the eyeball itself sags unpleasantly. Roy relaxes his grip on the tweezers, and the eyelid falls mostly closed. Riza offers him the tiny sample bottle, and Roy takes it, pops the needle into its rubber top, and empties the syringe into it. Done.

They both exhale at the same time.

And now, there's one last thing. The sag of the eye, Knox told him, will need to be disguised. Roy takes the tweezers from Riza's cloth, and uses them to pick up a little pad of cotton wool.

Holding the eyelid up carefully with a second pair of tweezers, Roy pops the pad under it -

\- and hears the click of the door opening, the click of the safety catch on Riza's pistol. Before he processes any of it, he's let go of Grumman's eyelid and has his right hand brought up to snap. The tweezers drop to the floor.

"Sir?" says one of the troopers, uncertainly. "Brigadier General Mustang?" He looks familiar, but Roy can't place him.

Out of uniform and dressed like a burglar in a black polo neck, utility vest and pants, Roy feels off-kilter. He straightens his back and stares the troopers down, trying to get a handle on this situation.

Almost immediately, the trooper who spoke grasps his gun by the barrel and raises both hands in surrender. His comrade follows his lead. Roy blinks. Then he recognises the first trooper. It's Private Fieseler, the resourceful tracker-down of bacon sandwiches from yesterday morning.

"What are you doing on guard, Fieseler? Your name wasn't down for this."

"Last minute replacement, sir. I'm covering for Corporal Fenwick, his mother had a stroke this afternoon."

Roy's mind races. Fieseler isn't technically one of theirs. He's from Central. They don't know enough about him to trust him. But - "What did you do on Eclipse Day, Fieseler?"

"Had the day off, sir. I was watching the eclipse with the big crowd at Unification Square. When all the chaos started, the off-duty soldiers there did crowd control, trying to keep people calm."

"What about your friend?"

"Private Lamacq. He was with me, sir."

"Can someone verify this?"

"A Captain Stevenson was in charge, sir. She said she was writing up commendations for us."

That, at least, can be chased up. Roy nods, but doesn't lower his hand. "All right, you two. Here's the situation. We have reason to believe the Fuhrer was assassinated by poison, and that those responsible are military. We need to get this sample verified. Are you with me?"

"Yes, sir." Fieseler's right hand, raised in surrender twitches reflexively towards a salute.

"When does your shift change?"

"At twenty hundred hours, sir."

"Here's what you'll do. You're both going to go back outside and change shifts as usual. You won't see us, but we'll be watching you do it. Then you'll both take a left down the corridor. There'll be a door there you haven't seen before, and you're going to open it. We'll be waiting for you. I appreciate your support, but you're going to have to earn my trust. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," they both say.

"Good. Holster your weapons, soldiers, and back to your posts."

The two troopers holster their sidearms, salute, and turn on their heels. After their marching footsteps fade, Riza says quietly, "A bit of a risk."

"Any better ideas?"

"None."

"I can make us a peephole. If they're not what they seem and try to sneak a message to the new guards, we'll see them."

"And then what? They're coming with us to the hotel?"

"Exactly. Tomorrow, I don't know, we'll have to keep them supervised. At least until we - act upon this."

And there it is. Their other problem. If it is digitalis poisoning, if they can prove an assassination, pin down a culprit - what then? Does Roy have enough military support to take this public? Is confronting Hakuro going to gain Roy the Fuhrership?

Or is it going to plunge the country into civil war?


	5. Chapter 5

" _Her Sacrifice for Our Motherland: General Armstrong to Be Given State Funeral Tomorrow,_ " Breda reads from the front page of this evening's _Central Times_. A half-page photograph of Olivia Armstrong, hands on her sword hilt, glowers up from the paper. " _Amestris has been rocked by revelations of Fuhrer Bradley's tragic descent into illness after a lifetime of tireless service. As more of the terrible events of Eclipse Day emerge, the full extent of General Olivia Armstrong's heroism has been revealed. Amestris today mourned a national heroine who died leading a charge against the traitors' deadly experimental weapons, powered by taboo alchemy, blah blah blah flagwaving, blah blah blah horseshit._ What happened to _our_ story? I thought the old brass were our scapegoats. They were endangering the country with the wacky alchemical experiment, and Bradley and the kid were supposed to have died in a tragic _accident_."

"They still did," says Roy. "But today the provisional government decided to let slip that Bradley was having a nervous breakdown and got led astray by his unscrupulous advisors."

"But we _handcrafted_ that pile of bullshit. We had our lying witnesses, we had our oily villains, it was beautiful."

"It's called a limited hangout," says Roy. "The people smell a rat, so you reveal a small chunk of the truth, and it keeps them quiet." Roy drains some of his coffee mug. "And it was my idea. So stop whining, Lieutenant."

Breda pouts and turns to the second page. " _Who's Who in the Interim Government_ ," he reads. " _Brigadier General Roy Mustang. At thirty, the youngest living officer to attain the rank this century_ \- hey, you beat Armstrong's score - _the Hero of Ishbal led the Eclipse Day counter-rebellion at General Armstrong's side_ \- oho, we get to be the counter-rebellion now."

"What does it say about Hakuro?" asks Roy, poking his head over the top of the paper.

"Shouldn't you already know? I thought the _Interim Government_ fed this stuff to the press."

"Yes, but I want to see if they slipped any sneaky bias into his write-up."

" _Major General Laurence Hakuro. A heavily decorated war hero whose strong leadership in the East, in partnership with then-Lieutenant General Grumman, brought stability to a troubled region. The Major General took charge in East City on Eclipse Day, preventing riots and saving countless lives._ What the fuck is that?"

Roy shrugs. "The press have to show us both in a positive light, that was part of the deal." He scans the paragraph. "I was hoping they'd drop in some implications that he's a dried up, bitter old fart, though. They've done a good job of being even-handed. How annoying."

"But - he wasn't even in the city on Eclipse Day, he was at the joint North-East training, and he still gets the credit for taking care of East?" Breda whistles. "Ouch. And what about this crapola about him being buddies with Grumman? _You_ were running East with Grumman way longer."

"Sure. Grumman couldn't stand the man. We're all up to about here," Roy indicates a spot a couple of inches above their heads, "in lies by now."

The beaded curtain behind the hotel bar rustles, and Madam Christmas emerges. "Speaking of which," she says. Her mouth is set.

Roy gets to his feet. "Knox?"

"Just called. The sample was good enough. It was digitalis poisoning. Time for our next move, kid."

Ah, yes. That.

Riza and Major Miles are summoned. Privates Fieseler and Lamacq, their new recruits from morgue security, have been handed into the care of Falman and Fuery. Tomorrow they'll be requisitioned to the disaster relief team under Falman. For now, they're playing poker in the other room: true members of Team Mustang, it seems.

The meeting convenes. Miles seems a little surprised that Roy's idea of a war council includes a small dog and a middle-aged lady wearing about a kilo of diamonds. But he takes it on the chin.

"So," says Roy, "we have confirmation of the means, and proof of assassination. Now we need two things. Proof of the culprit, and a plan regarding what we're going to _do_ with the information."

"A doctor, or more likely a pharmacist, made up the pills with a lethal dose," Riza continues, "and then someone likely switched them for Grumman's usual medicine. We're anticipating that the same person switched them back."

"Question the valet," says Madam Christmas. "And anyone who was near his bedroom. They could have slipped in while he was in the bathtub. The old bird's hearing wasn't so hot."

"I'm afraid a good few people were near the room," says Miles. "He stayed in officers' quarters at East HQ that night. I wanted to put my people on guard, but the Fuhrer wouldn't have it. He wanted his own soldiers, from East." Miles shrugs. "I think he didn't entirely trust the soldiers of Briggs not to slit his throat in the night. So, over the course of the night, we're dealing with a list of eighteen soldiers. I've got that list, though."

"What about the pills?" asks Breda. "I mean, when you get medicine, it looks a bit different depending on which pharmacist rolls the pills, right? These would have to match. And it's not like the assassins had a lot of planning time to steal pills and get them to match up."

"What's your point?" asks Roy.

"Why don't we try Grumman's regular pharmacist first?"

"He used the Headquarters Medical Centre pharmacy," says Riza slowly. "And it has a pretty small staff, from what I remember."

"Yeah," Breda agrees. "You always had to wait in line for ages."

"Right," says Roy, getting it. "So Hakuro and his people would have had links there too. Someone working there could have been a sympathiser, or perhaps Hakuro leaned on them hard."

"I can handle getting our culprit," says Miles. "Some officers from Briggs' Investigations Department are still in East. They get results fast. If I relay this to them, it's likely I can have a confession for you by noon tomorrow."

It's certainly a bold claim - but Roy believes him. "This is going to be a valid confession, yes? If the supposed culprit's half dead, it won't be worth the paper it's printed on."

"Because Hakuro's such a champion of human rights?" Breda adds.

"If it's politically expedient and he can get away with it, yes."

"I'll impress upon them the need to leave the suspect in one piece, sir," Miles says drily.

This still doesn't sit well - but they need that confession, and they need it now. "All right," says Roy. "Make it happen, Major."

After Miles has saluted and left, Roy turns to his remaining three listeners. "Now, here's our other decision. Do I have enough military support to publicly accuse Hakuro?"

Breda says, "From the reports I've seen, you've got the popular vote, sir."

"Unfortunately, that's not the most important thing right now," Riza replies.

Roy continues, "If I make an accusation but don't have enough back-up in the brass to take down Hakuro, then I force his hand - and it will come to violence. Perhaps nationwide violence. The last thing Amestris needs now is a civil war." As everyone around here should well know already.

"So, kid, what do you think?" Roy's mother fiddles with the big diamond ring on her left index finger, slowly turning the rock back and forth. It's one of those things she does when she's trying not to show she's rattled. "You spent most of yesterday and today sitting around a table with these people. Surely that's enough for you to get a handle on the mood?"

Roy can sense his mother's implicit criticism, _I taught you to be smarter than that_. He can see the tension in her too, and the anger. She's lost a friend. She needs to see his murderers go down. He looks her in the eye and says, slowly, "We've got to consider the whole country."

"I know that!" she snaps. "Don't evade the issue. How much support have you managed to gather?"

Riza cuts in. "We've seen quite a bit of support, Madam," she says. "The problem is that now we've removed the old brass, most of these officers are new to this much power. They're not used to running a nation. And a lot of them are still struggling with the truth of what's happened. Most of them seem to be sitting on the fence right now. They listen to Brigadier General Mustang, and they respect him. But." She pauses.

Roy jumps in. "But a lot of people don't quite trust me yet. I'm sure I can convince them, in time - but we don't have time."

"If you didn't accuse Hakuro openly," Breda asks, "what then?"

"I'd bring the matter to his attention privately," Roy says, "and use it to my advantage."

"If you mean blackmail, kid, say blackmail," Madam Christmas says.

Roy shoots her a look. "Blackmail," says Roy.

Madam Christmas just laughs, a short, sour bark, and says, "I raised you smart."

There's a moment of silence.

"Tomorrow morning," Roy says, "is General Armstrong's state funeral. By the time it's over, we're likely to have proof enough that Hakuro ordered Grumman's assassination to be able to act. The funeral looks to be an unpleasant public relations exercise - perhaps we'll gain some new information on my level of support, perhaps not. At any rate, we can't act until we have the proof. Hopefully, by funeral's end, we'll know what card we'll be playing."

***

Doctor Marcoh is in a terrible mood this evening. He's grouchy at Roy for evading his check-ups for two days, sure, but there's something else underneath it. He mutters under his breath as he roots through his back for equipment. He drops things. When he speaks, his hands jitter. 

Roy reads letters from a board and lets Marcoh peer under his eyelids and into his pupils with a tiny flashlight that leaves red spots floating in his vision. Marcoh makes him walk in a straight line, balance on one leg, then touch his nose with each forefinger in turn. 

"Can you tell me your name and today's date?" asks Marcoh. 

"Roy Mustang, 22nd March 1916. I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but what's that have to do with my eyes?"

"Nothing," says Marcoh. "I'm checking for brain damage. Who's the standing Fuhrer?"

Roy sighs. "We don't know. Not in a brain damage way, in a political clusterfuck way."

Marcoh says, "That's what I thought. What are you doing about it?"

"My best. That's why you couldn't get ahold of me these past two days."

"Yes, yes," says Marcoh. "Do your best." There's a catch in his voice. Roy meets Marcoh's eyes for a moment. "A lot of people are counting on you," Marcoh says mildly. 

The examination continues without further conversation. 

After Marcoh has finished poking and prodding, and declared Roy's eyes and brain to be apparently in working order, Roy hovers for a moment after shrugging on his coat. 

"You look as though you have something to say." Marcoh is looking at him shrewdly. 

Roy half-laughs. "Yes. Something I needed to ask you about." He draws a breath in. "You don't know this, but I've been looking for you for a long time." Marcoh stiffens in alarm, and Roy raises a hand. "No, not in a military capacity, as a doctor. I heard about you. I wanted your help. One of my officers was injured." 

Roy tells the story as briefly as he can: the tunnels under Laboratory Three, the homunculus, how close they had all come to dying.  He repeats Havoc's exact diagnosis, memorised long ago and explained to Roy, unsparingly, by Knox.

"Ah," says Marcoh quietly, after Roy has finished speaking. "I'm very sorry to hear that."

Something about his tone makes Roy's stomach drop. He presses on anyway. "I wondered - well, you know what I was wondering. Can you do something for him?" Marcoh is looking at him with those kind, sad little eyes and nodding, and he's still not saying anything. Roy rushes on, filling the silence. "He's a - very valued officer. The coup, defeating Bradley - we couldn't have done it without him. He smuggled arms for us, and - look, he's stuck back East in some farming village, and he ought to be _here_ , this was his whole life. He's a decent person. You treat ordinary people all the time. Look -"

"I understand," says Marcoh quietly. Roy suddenly realises he'd nearly been shouting. "I wouldn't refuse to treat your officer. But I'm afraid I can tell you from experience that the Stone can't be used to treat a spinal injury of that severity."

"How can the treatment not work?" Roy frowns. "I thought the Stone was meant to be some kind of panacea."

"It works perfectly well," says Marcoh, "if you don't mind killing the patient."

"Oh," says Roy. 

"The Stone's energy is life; given critical mass, that life will struggle for survival. Inject too much into a body, and you'll trigger a lethal struggle. Do you know how they made Bradley?"

"Oh," says Roy. He's starting to see - but he doesn't want to. They injected the Stone into test subjects. It killed a dozen men, then made a monster. But maybe - "What if it were several smaller treatments?"

"To do this safely? It would have to be several hundred treatments," says Marcoh. "With over a year's recovery time each."

"How do you even know this?" asks Roy. It comes out harsh, an explosion of sound. He doesn't mean it to. "How do you even know what's possible, without trying?"

Marcoh looks at him, and there's something in his eyes behind the kindly professionalism. "I know because I tried," he says. "Once." The last word comes out tight and grim. Marcoh's scarred mouth presses itself together hard, and his eyes - Roy knows that expression, the misery of a mistake that's beyond clawing back or fixing, that you just have to live with.

What can Roy say? He nods, and says, "Thank you."

"However," says Marcoh. "One of those smaller treatments. There would be a good amount of pain and risk, in exchange for a very modest improvement. Not walking, put that out of your mind. But - you know, small improvements that other people might not notice can make a great deal of difference to a patient. It would be his decision, not yours. I know when a patient's been pushed, you know."

Roy almost laughs. Not so long ago, he would have bet upon his ability to push Havoc into most things. But these days - not so much. 

"And I have another favour to ask you," Marcoh continues. "The political situation, right now. If you don't win this - please get a warning to me. You understand, it's not because I'm worried for my own safety. My knowledge is a weapon. It needs to be kept out of the hands of people who'd misuse it. Whatever that takes," Marcoh finishes softly. The catches on his doctor's bag click quietly shut. 

***

It's pretty awkward sitting in the back of a car with a sabre strapped across your waist. There must be a way to do it right, although Roy doesn't know it. He is sure that Olivia Armstrong must have learnt how to sit elegantly while wearing a sword before she hit puberty. If she were here, he'd definitely scope her out to see how it was done.

Of course, if she were here, there'd be no need for any of this at all.

The whole city seems dressed for a funeral today. As the car moves slowly through the streets, Roy sees black armbands on newspaper sellers, street cafés with chairs stacked on the tables and signs proclaiming they're shut _in tribute to General Armstrong, and to allow our staff to pay their respects_. He even sees a couple of shrines on street corners.

It all makes his stomach roll a little. Not because he begrudges General Armstrong the public mourning, although he's fairly certain she'd consider it all so much bullshit - but because the crowds lining the streets between Parliament Hall and the military cemetery, none of them knew her. While her country is mourning her, General Armstrong's entire family, bar one, are thousands of miles away at the Xingese port of Longyamen. Their telegraphed requests for the funeral to be postponed have been roundly ignored, as was Major Armstrong's personal letter of petition to the provisional government. In death, Olivia Armstrong belongs not to her family, but to the nation: or rather, to the people currently fighting over it. One of whom is Roy. He has bigger things to worry about at the moment - but still. This is vile.

As the military car turns into the cemetery, Roy turns to Riza, inclines his head towards the sabre, and says, "This is it, by the way." He unsheathes the sabre a couple of inches, so she can see the roses chased into the blade. She raises her eyebrows.

First thing this morning, Major Armstrong showed up in Roy's temporary office, exhausted but impeccable, carrying the General's sabre wrapped in a velvet cloth and a sealed envelope bearing Roy's name and the Armstrong coat of arms stamped into the wax.

He said nothing at first, and that was the most disturbing part for Roy. He'd only rarely seen the man so quiet, and it usually presaged trouble.

After Roy unwrapped the sabre, Armstrong said, "A bequest from my sister. It was her habit not to give compliments easily, but she had a _great deal_ of respect for you. You of course have my support in any move - in any decision you might take -" His shoulders had started to shake. Roy gave him a moment, but the tremors just got worse, until his whole huge body looked as thought it was vibrating.

"Please take a seat, Major," Roy said. He'd never been any good at comforting people. He filled a glass of water from the jug on his desk and took it over to Major Armstrong. He nodded his thanks, but didn't drink. Instead, he just sat there with the water glass hidden in his big hands, head down, shoulders still quivering with tension.

Roy couldn't bear to ask him if Olivia Armstrong really did leave Roy the Armstrong estate. Damn the woman for making a joke out of it all like that.

The General's note, characteristically, got straight to the point. As Roy read it, he felt his eyebrows gradually climb into his bangs.

He looked up and saw Armstrong looking at him, eyes red and expectant. Any message from the dead is naturally hoarded. Roy remembered Gracia telling him how she'd saved Hughes' shopping lists. "She said that she's entrusting me to do a good job," Roy said, hastily folding the letter and pocketing it. "It's an honour."

 _Mustang -_

 _Since you're reading this, I'm dead. In that case, as a leader for this country, you're a whisker better than the alternatives, so you'll just have to do. Don't fuck it up, or I'll claw my way out of the grave and choke you to death with your own balls._

 _Major General Olivia Mira Armstrong_

No pressure, eh?

In the graveyard, Roy stands at attention, surrounded by rows of people he cannot trust. The caisson processes slowly towards them. The pallbearers march alongside it. Behind it, the riderless horse closes the procession, General Armstrong's boots reversed in the stirrups.

As the priest calls to the four directions, Roy notices that Riza is looking over the front rows of crowd, searchingly. Discreetly, as the service proceeds with the National Anthem, then the invocation, they both watch the faces of the country's new military command. They are almost universally stern and blank, eyes forward.

Roy isn't so shocked to find that, when the time comes, it isn't General Armstrong's brother who steps up to deliver her eulogy, but her aide. Major Armstrong stands at attention, mouth set and eyes hidden under the peak of his cap. Roy finds himself setting his own mouth in a line when he looks at him.

Major Miles' voice carries a lot better than the priest's does. Roy supposes it must be all that shouting in snowstorms.

"General Armstrong was assigned command of the frontier fortress of Briggs as a colonel - a very young colonel at twenty-eight years old, at that. For the ten years she commanded there, she was called, by both her own troops and by the rest of the country, the Wall of Briggs. She herself put it a little differently. The day I arrived under her command, she said to me, _we don't just guard the wall, we_ are _the wall._ General Armstrong believed a fortress is only as strong as its soldiers, and a commander only as able as her troops. She acted without hesitation, on the day of her death and every day of her life, knowing that the wall she had built would hold fast."

"On the day of the eclipse, the Wall of Briggs defended Amestris. The Wall of Briggs defends it still."

It's the shortest funeral oration Roy has ever heard, and perhaps the calmest threat. During the deafening cannon blasts of the nineteen gun salute, he notices some of the more old-fashioned members of the brass looking distinctly nervous. Ah, now if this was Roy's funeral, Armstrong would have had Major Miles get the bears of Briggs to aim the cannons directly into their sweating ranks. The Briggs way: how nice and simple a solution that would have been.

But then, Armstrong would have been perfectly happy to start up a civil war.

***

After earth has been heaped on the coffin and the circle closed, Roy and Riza offer condolences and prepare to take their leave. They're skipping the wake. They have other business. As they leave, Major Armstrong, halfway into an anecdote about his sister overpowering a burglar at the age of eight, has finally given way to mighty weeping. Miles pats him awkwardly on the arm.

The answer they are waiting for is just outside the cemetery gates. A very familiar flower seller stands with her cart. Her headscarf and dress today are black - but on a morning where half the city is dressed in mourning, it hardly stands out.

"Good day for the flower trade," Roy remarks, and then regrets it immediately.

"Would you like to pay your respects with some lilies?"

They walk two blocks into the city, and around the corner where Breda has stashed an unmarked car for them. After they've gotten in, Roy opens the bouquet, and pulls out the expected folded note. The heavy, over-sweetened smell of the flowers fills the car. Roy detests the smell of lilies. He shoves the bouquet onto the back seat and opens the note as Riza pulls out into the street. It's short, but it has all the information they need.

"The pharmacist confessed half an hour ago," Roy says.

Riza nods. "So," she says quietly.

"So," Roy returns. "I didn't pick up anything new back there. Did you?"

"Other than that at least five of the old guard were worried the nineteen gun salute would be a firing squad?"

Roy laughs shortly at that.

"No, nothing useful. It's - something of a game of chance, isn't it?" Riza says. "There's a lot we can't know, but we still have to play."

Roy smiles. "You sound like me."

"Well. We've been hanging around each other a long time." She looks ahead. "Make the call."

It has to be done. Roy exhales heavily and stretches out his legs. He shoves his hands into the pocket of his dress trousers - and realises there's a piece of paper there. He pulls it out. It's been worn by laundering, but when he unfolds it, he sees, written in pencil, _Emily, 5 o'clock cocktails._ A note in his alchemy code: a relic from another funeral, another murder investigation.

It's been nearly two years.

Roy turns to Riza. She flicks her eyes to his briefly, then looks back at the road. "We'll go for it," he says. "All or nothing."

"Yes, sir." She smoothly takes the turning towards headquarters.

A block later, Riza brakes rapidly as the car in front of them does so too. It doesn't start again. Roy puts his head close to the windscreen to see what's going on. "There's a truck stopped in the middle of the intersection," Roy reports. The driver has gotten down from the cab and is yelling at a motorist who has his head out of his car window. "Looks like a breakdown. We should turn around."

But that's easier said than done. Cars are filling the lanes rapidly. Soon they're completely surrounded. Car horns are starting to blare from all around them, chaotically.

"Well, that always helps," says Roy crabbily. "If you make enough noise, the whole traffic jam will just magically disperse."

Riza is frowning. "This is - suspiciously timed."

Roy thinks it over for a moment. It makes unpleasant sense. "Yes," he mutters. They both look at the cars around them. A few people are beginning to get out of their vehicles and to mill around. Too many of them are young and physically fit. Is Roy being paranoid? Probably. But -

"That man's a soldier," Riza says. "The one in the grey shirt. Look at how he's standing."

Roy looks again. He spots the bulge of a gun holster under a couple of jackets. He takes a breath.

"Shit. Well, there's no point just sitting here and waiting for them," he says. "We'll get out. Follow my lead. If there are few enough of them, we'll make a break for it. If not - " he shrugs.

Riza's lips are pressed together. She puts a hand to the car door. The fingers of her other hand twitch a little firmer around her pistol.

They're ready.

"On three. One -" And he doesn't get any further. With no warning at all, the car door is wrenched open and he's already halfway out, hauled by hands under his shoulders, by people whose faces he can't see. Roy snaps small and close at whoever's got him. There's a howl but, no, the hands just tighten.

Roy's poised to snap again - when he hears two shots from the opposite side of the car, he hears Riza cry out in pain. He freezes and jerks his head around, _no_ \- and at the same time brings his hand up to snap at whoever's got Riza. But his change of course must have slowed him, because before he even glimpses Riza his wrists are held, and the other arms around his shoulders tighten, wrenching his arms out to the sides. As his fingers are being forced apart, he kicks out behind him, still straining to see her. On the other side of the car, he briefly catches sight of her, whole but struggling in the grip of two men, her gun arm wrenched up and away from her. Something is forced over his head - a sack? - and he carries on struggling, breathing through cloth, seeing in fragments through the holes in the rough material.

He thrashes and shouts and kicks, but it's just rage now, he knows they have him. There's pressure on his shoulders and he's forced to his knees. Someone grips his chin, holding him in place - and his next breath fills him with nausea. Something's wrong. The cloth over his mouth is soaking wet with something cloyingly sweet and chemical, and by the time it's registered, he already has a second lungful of fumes. He can feel the hand gripping his jaw holding a thick wad of something over his mouth. Roy knows the smell now, chloroform and ether. _Shit_. He holds his breath, wrenches his body sharply around, twists his wrists. The left hand comes free, but as he presses his fingers together he registers the glove is gone, so he tries to get his hands together to clap instead - and he finds he's hauled in another breath of sickly vapours. He never gets his hands together. His wrist is grasped again before he gets there, and this time the grip feels unbreakable. His lungs ache. He's getting unbearably dizzy. The ground tilts and whirls under him. _No, no, no._

His head fires with pain. His legs give way. And then he falls, and falls, and never hits the ground.


	6. Chapter 6

The bell on the front door of Bar Christmas jingles when it opens. Maurice the cat, in his usual spot on the bar with all paws tucked under him, barely cracks his eyes open. Roy ignores it too; he has been hearing that sound since he was too small to climb a barstool. Roy spares the cat a glance, but not the customer. He tickles Maurice behind one velvety ear, then goes straight back to his algebra homework, before his train of thought is lost. Quadratic equations are _maddening_ , but if he can't defeat them, he's never going to be able to work out his own arrays. The very thought of ending up as a third-rate alchemist, fixing peoples' broken ornaments at a shop in the suburbs, is appalling. So on he goes.

The beaded curtain behind the bar rustles. Then his mother's gravelly voice calls, "Hello, stranger," with that warmth in her tone that tells Roy it's probably someone interesting who's come in.

Roy looks up. It's Colonel Grumman, strolling in with his cap doffed and his usual waggish grin. "Afternoon, sir," Roy says.

"Madam," says the colonel. He takes the hand Roy's mother offers, bringing it up to kiss her knuckles. Then he turns to Roy and ruffles his hair. "Hello, lad. Hard at work?"

Roy tries to flatten down the front of his hair. "Algebra. It's incredibly boring, sir."

"That's life," his mother says. "You don't get to skip the boring parts." She turns to the colonel. "You'll stay for dinner?"

"Alas," the colonel says, "I am summoned to some wretched function this evening. A quick gin and tonic, an hour of your delightful company, and perhaps a little discussion of our mutual business interests?"

Roy's mother winks, and turns to pour out a measure of gin for her guest. They'll be talking about _work_ , then. Roy pricks up his ears, but only a bit. He's been living with the spying game since he was four; long enough to know that it, too, has its boring bits. The interesting bits, though, look like terrific fun: a bit like working out an array, only with people. You pop all the pieces in order, and then at the end, if you're clever enough, you get what you want.

The colonel's eyes drift down to Roy's homework.

"Goodness," he says, "look at all those equations. Darn sight more advanced than what they were teaching ten year olds in my day."

"It's not schoolwork," says Roy, "it's homework from my alchemy tutor. Mrs Pettifer says _algebra is the weight and measure of a good array._ "

"Not still thinking of going in for alchemy, are we?" asks the colonel.

"What's wrong with alchemists?" Roy feels personally affronted, and that short-circuits his usual politeness to grown-ups; after all, isn't he an alchemist already? Didn't he mend a broken gramophone for his mother only this afternoon?

"Sneakiness, I'm afraid." The rueful tone in the colonel's voice is a little confusing; sneakiness has always been sold to Roy as a virtue.

"Pots and kettles," smirks Roy's mother, leaning a hip on the bar. Roy's mother places the colonel's drink in front of him. He takes a seat next to Roy at the bar. Maurice the cat untucks his legs, stretches, and then ambles towards the colonel in hopes of a head scratch.

***

The first thing Roy's aware of is, of course, his headache. It's back and hard at work, hammering his temples from the insides with such force that it takes him a good few moments of slowly rising consciousness to realise that something else is wrong too. He becomes aware that he's stiff and uncomfortable. Eyes still scrunched shut, he tries to stretch his legs, but pinching metal bands stop them after just a couple of inches. He's cuffed to the chair he's sitting in.

After that, it all begins to fall into place.

Over the next few minutes, Roy explores his position. He's still wearing the canvas bag that was shoved over his head in the street. A few cursory shakes of his head confirm that something is loosely tying it in place under his chin. It's a little airless, like breathing under bedclothes, and it still smells somewhat nauseatingly of the chloroform he was drugged with. He can see nothing but vague fragments of light.

His wrists are being held a foot apart by what Roy guesses are wooden shackles. Standard procedure for restraining alchemists. His hands themselves are bandaged into fists. He can feel some kind of padding under his fingertips.

It occurs to Roy that he's being kept alive. If they were going to kill him, he'd have been dead right there in the car. What's the meaning of this? Has Riza - _please, dammit_ \- been kept alive too? That would make sense, he tells himself desperately. What about the rest of his team? Are they still free? Are they aware of his absence yet?

He can't hear a thing in the room. "Hey," he calls out. "Hey!" His voice sounds rough. "I want to know who's holding me, and why." There's no answer, no sound. The room sounds small. Where are they holding Roy? In Headquarters itself, a private house, a military lock-up? Roy considers shouting his questions again, but what's it going to achieve, other than make him sound impotent? Besides, he likely knows the answers already.

The minutes pass slowly. Roy tries and fails to get his fingertips together, to pull a wrist from the shackles, to break a chair leg by kicking his foot out. His struggles don't even seem to draw the attention of a guard. His nausea and headache ebb and flow.

His mouth feels dry and sticky. He rolls his own spittle around his mouth, and despite himself imagines water.

He's still alive. He's going to assume Hakuro was responsible for this, not some splinter group. The timing of their abduction is almost conclusive: only an hour or two after Roy's people arrested the pharmacist who made the pills that killed Grumman. What kind of plan for a coup requires Roy to be kept alive? The only thing that occurs is a court-martial: a show trial, public humiliation, death by rule of law, all of it spun to make him look less of a martyr and more of an incompetent traitor. Both Roy and Hakuro have seen, these past few days, how easy it can be to feed a new version of the truth to the people of Amestris. The deck is stacked, and Hakuro knows the dealer. Roy wonders if they've decided what they're going to try him for yet. Then the answer flashes into his brain, along with a head-clearing jolt of adrenaline.

Hakuro is going to pin Grumman's assassination on Roy.

What about everyone else? Riza will likely face the same fate. Breda, Fuery, Falman. Second Lieutenant Ross, who walked back into danger for him. Would they trace the arms supply back to Havoc in the East? With a cry of rage, Roy kicks his foot out again. He only succeeds in jarring the bones of his ankle. His whole body buzzes with frustrated energy and horror.

They've always faced the possibility that something like this might be the end of it all. Now that it's here, he finds that he can't face it at all.

After an unquantifiable stretch of hours or minutes, there is sound. Marching footsteps, several pairs, keys rattling in the door. Closer footsteps, then Roy's chin is forced up in the crook of someone's arm, half-choking him, as his ankles are unlocked from the chair. Then there are arms either side of him, lifting him with ease and force, and starting to march him along. Roy struggles to even keep his feet on the floor. He pulls against his captors' grip, experimentally, but it's rock solid. Are these the same gorillas as last time, or does Hakuro have a whole supply of them? Are they transporting him somewhere else? Are they taking him for interrogation, for a torture session?

 _A corridor_ , Roy thinks, disoriented. A corridor, and then - in another room? - he's forced down onto a chair again, and his ankles are secured.

Then - there's a pull at his neck and for a moment Roy almost panics. Then he realises - they're removing the hood.

Roy mentally prepares himself. He is a human weapon, after all. Even physically powerless as he is, he can be intimidating. Any slight advantage he can gain, he needs to press.

When the bag comes off, the glare is blinding for a second. Roy squints automatically, trying to get his bearings. It looks like an interrogation room; he could be in the lockup at Headquarters, or a police station, or half a dozen other places. Through the small window running high along one wall, Roy can't make out any surroundings, but he can see that it's still light outside.

And sitting in front of Roy, on the other side of a plain table, is Major General Hakuro.

***

Roy wants to ask for water. He's parched, nauseous, and in pain. He's not going to ask for water, he's not going to abase himself like that. He's not going to let himself be distracted by his body. He fails to stop himself wetting his lips.

Hakuro's face is set, in that solid, wall-like way that only big men seem to be able to manage. Still, Roy notices, he doesn't quite look like a man in command of a nation. He's breathing a little too fast, and there are beads of sweat on his forehead. His hands are clasped on the table tightly, twitchily.

The man is nervous. Why? Roy grabs hold of the idea, focuses upon it. _Try to work out why he's so rattled._

Neither of them speaks for a good few seconds.

It's Hakuro who breaks the silence. "How long have you known?" he asks.

"Known what?" says Roy, keeping his face blank. It seems he instinctively decided to test Hakuro, to see what he knows or guesses about Grumman.

"Months?" Hakuro spits. "Years?"

Roy blinks. What?

"Bradley," says Hakuro. "The country. The eclipse. How long were you sitting on that?"

It takes Roy a moment to gather his thoughts. "l want," he says carefully, "to know Captain Hawkeye's condition."

"In custody," says Hakuro. Nothing worse - for now, Roy guesses. A pang of relief with an edge of fear. "How long?" Hakuro repeats. His voice is louder.

"My men?"

" _How long?_ " They're not in custody yet, then.

Roy withholds his reply, just for a moment, to savour the small shift of power towards himself. "Months," he says. "Months of planning, not of _sitting on it_. What the hell else did you think I was going to do but plan in secret? Bradley knew I was onto him, anyway. You know that."

"Oh, so this was all deeply unselfish, was it? For the sake of Amestris?"

"Yes, for the sake of Amestris!" Roy's voice cracks as he shouts. His throat's too dry.

"You smug little bastard." Hakuro shakes his head. "You risked the lives of the whole country hanging onto this information. You waited until Eclipse Day for your coup, you used that alchemical - thing - what it tried to do to us all - as a _distraction_. I'm probably wasting my breath here, but if the people of this nation mean so much to you, how can you even justify that?"

For a moment, Roy can't come up with a response, as he struggles to process the accusation. "You think that - the reason Armstrong and I planned the coup for the Promised Day was so I could just take over while everyone was dealing with the Homunculus?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I think. Going to try to talk your way out of it?"

"You know now that Eclipse Day _was_ the only day we could act against the Homunculus. Protecting the people of this country _was_ our highest aim. As for the coup, I'm not denying my goals. You think after all the trouble we had saving this country, I'm going to hand it to just anyone?"

Hakuro snorts at him, and then laughs - a proper, deep belly laugh. Roy's muscles clench. He'd forgotten for a moment that here he is, shackled and in charge of nothing at all.

"I didn't come here to hear your pompous self-justifications," Hakuro spits.

"What's the point of this, then?" It's a genuine enough question.

"What other secrets are you sitting on, Mustang? How many of those alchemy-creatures are there out there?"

"The homunculi?" Is that it, then? He has information - or Hakuro thinks he does. He has a bargaining chip, something his opponent wants from him. "None. One. The infant you saw, the one in Mrs Bradley's care."

"Tell me what it does. Tell me how it works." Hakuro lowers his voice. He sounds almost horrified.

"You've got alchemists of your own, surely?"

"You know these creatures. It's not going to do you any good to keep your secrets. Tell me. Tell me how to destroy it, tell me how to control it. Do a bit of real good for once in your life. Don't leave Amestris at the mercy of another goddamn monster."

"Why?" Roy asks. "Out of sheer altruism? I don't believe this crap about appealing to my better nature."

Hakuro tuts. "I need this information for Amestris' security. If you're not going to tell me, then my next port of call is the Elric brothers."

Roy starts forward before he can help himself. _Fuck._ On the Promised Day, they fought a god, but now - Alphonse was as thin as paper and tiny in his hospital bed. Fullmetal, with his right arm missing, is currently unable to clap. They're so vulnerable, and so close to completing their impossible journey, getting out of this mess and back to the village in the rolling hills, their old guardian with her pipe and wiry hair, their pretty friend whose mention makes Edward pout out his lower lip -

"You _utter fucking bastard_. It's a baby," Roy spits, "it doesn't _do_ anything, it's a goddamn baby. It's an artificial human, it's nothing. Now if that's all you came for, get out of my sight." Hakuro doesn't move. Roy can't stop himself, now he's started. "Don't flaunt your morality in front of me and then threaten to torture a couple of teenagers."

"You're a traitor," Hakuro says simply. "Whatever Bradley was, this nation's grown strong under him. You betrayed your country and your people."

"You don't get to call me a traitor," Roy says. "You had the standing Fuhrer murdered."

"Grumman collaborated with you and Armstrong! He was as much a traitor as the pair of you. I'm rooting this poison out, all of it. I'll bury as many of you people as I need to to make this country safe."

"You can try. This isn't over. You're planning to try me for this assassination?" Hakuro doesn't bother to reply. Roy knows the answer anyway. "Well, good luck with that. My people aren't going to stop, you know. They've got the truth and they'll fight for me."

Hakuro nods, his lips set.

Roy blinks.

"You're right," says Hakuro. "Making a trial of this is going to be an endless damn pain in the ass. Better to just cut off the head of the operation."

He pulls his sidearm, clicks off the safety, and levels it at Roy's face.

By the time Roy has registered it all and his system has jolted with the shock of his impending death, he realises - Hakuro still hasn't fired.

Roy doesn't look at the gun barrel. He looks past it, into the eyes of the man holding the gun. They're wide. His forehead is dark. Apparently Hakuro's one of those men who goes red in the face when they're angry. Roy suddenly realises: Hakuro keeps changing his mind because he must have come here to decide what to do. He doesn't know what course to take.

Then Hakuro's own gaze shifts fractionally upward. He meets Roy's eyes, and Roy sees so clearly that the man is afraid. A frightened, confused man is aiming a gun into his face: not good.

Roy looks at him calmly. He doesn't know what might set off Hakuro's panic, so he makes his face as blank as possible. Let him see what he wants to see. _That gun-waving is starting to look undignified_ , an unhelpful part of his brain chimes in.

After another moment, Roy speaks quietly. "Grumman's death has torn the military in two," he says. He pauses. Hakuro's eyes are still on him. He's listening. Roy takes a breath. "The old guard trusted Grumman. My people liked him. Briggs supported him. There isn't anyone who can do that, who can take his place. After Bradley - it's more of a mess than either of us anticipated, isn't it?"

Hakuro huffs out a little breath through his nostrils. The ghost of a laugh. Roy's pulse is thudding fast in his throat.

Roy continues. "You've seen how much struggle it's been taking to hold this government together, neither of us can take power right now without risking plunging Amestris into a civil war -"

Something shifts in Hakuro's face. Roy holds his breath.

Then he realises something really, really awful. He's just accidentally spoken the truth.

Neither of them can take power safely yet - and neither of them is ready to start that war tomorrow, which means ...

Hakuro flicks on the safety catch. He holsters his gun, without ceremony.

After a moment, he shakes his head. "We may as well talk here," he says, voice heavy with disgust. "I'll call someone about those," he says, nodding his head at the shackles. "And get a pot of coffee sent in."

"Get Captain Hawkeye sent in," says Roy. So, now they bargain. He feels simultaneously jubilant and deeply, utterly pissed off. He keeps his face hard. "I'll talk terms with you after I see she's safe -"

\- and then the door flies across the room. Just like that, it's off its hinges and already sailing through the air. Roy scoots clumsily sideways and very nearly topples backwards with his chair, just before the door crashes into the side of the table. When Roy's righted himself, he sees that Hakuro's right hand is frozen in the act of drawing his sidearm.

Framed in the doorway is Major Armstrong, fist still extended from his iron-knuckled punch - and tucked against him, her pistol gripped in both hands, is Riza Hawkeye.

Roy grins. He grins at her like a madman, and is rewarded with a tiny, irritable little huff. Riza springs into the room, all business. She motions for Hakuro to get his hands in the air. As he does so, looking furious as a B-movie villain in the final reel, other people pour in behind her: Lieutenant Catalina, Breda, Fuery, Ross.

It's a good moment. A triumphant moment, even. It's a shame Roy's going to have to piss all over it.

Breda crouches by Roy, pulls a set of keys from his pocket, and starts trying them on the lock of Roy's shackles, one by one, while Fuery cuts through the binding on his hands with a penknife. As Roy painfully stretches his cramped hands, he sees Riza brandishing a pair of handcuffs at Hakuro.

 _Dammit._

"Men," Roy calls out, "lower your weapons. Everyone stand down, _now._ "

Everybody stands down. Everybody stares.

Roy takes a deep breath, and starts talking.

***

" _Our Nation Thanks Him for a Lifetime of Service_ ," Breda calls as Roy enters the hotel bar. He holds up the newspaper. Roy pulls a face. He takes off his cap, unbuckles Olivia Armstrong's sword, and rests it on a table. Armstrong's funeral had made him uneasy, but Bradley's made his skin crawl.

"I thought it went off well," Riza says. "By the way, Mrs Bradley thanks you for looking after her. She says she's settling in nicely at the manor house, and Selim's still feeding well."

"That's nice," says Roy, ruffling the slick out of his hair. He's only half-sarcastic. Somehow, despite everything, he likes Bradley's widow - and more than that, he trusts Fullmetal's word about the baby. Like any child, he deserves a chance.

Breda has bought extra copies of the _Central Times_. The three of them sit at a table and comb through the paper in silence. On page eleven, a newspaper editorial combed and approved by the provisional government writes tactfully of the tragedy of Bradley's final breakdown, sets it against his long and noble career. Roy can almost feel the journalists' fingers itching to write freely. Surely they can see that the state's control of the press is slackening?

"How was Hakuro's big eulogy?" Breda breaks the silence.

"As expected," says Riza from behind her newspaper.

" _Fuhrer Bradley's legacy is a safe and prosperous Amestris sustained by military strength,_ " Roy quotes sourly. "The thing is, I think he actually believes it."

Breda's face has gone dark. "Asshole," he mutters.

Madam Christmas, of course, chooses this moment to emerge from the beaded curtain behind the bar. "How did it go over with the crowd?" Her voice has that taut note that conveys maternal disapproval.

"Mixed reception," says Roy.

"I thought," Riza chips in, "that he struck rather an unfortunate note with all that business about Bradley's sword guarding the people from those who would harm them. There were definitely a few raised eyebrows in the brass then."

"Yes," says Roy, grateful that she's helping him out here. "I was actually hoping that he was going to say something about keeping body and soul together, that would have been perfect. How's the mood around here?"

"Distinctly disgruntled," Madam Christmas says. She leans an arm against the bar. "Last couple of days, this bar has seen a lot of mutterings about your new deal, kid."

Roy shoves a hand into his hair. "I know." He shrugs. "I can hardly blame them. _I_ would complain about me, if I were them."

"You change your mind about General Hakuro, there are a lot of people out there who'd volunteer to fix him a digitalis martini. Hell, I'd do it this evening if it wasn't going to start a war."

Roy closes his eyes for a moment. He thinks of another bar, long ago, of Grumman and his mother chuckling and plotting together, planning their next moves in a game that seemed to Roy, aged ten, to be harmless and fascinating as a chess match - and hardly more likely to hurt anyone he loved. Roy's right hand, resting on the table, nudges the hilt of Olivia Armstrong's sabre.

"Call everyone in," says Roy. "It's about time I explained."

 _Roy's fingers curl around a lukewarm coffee cup. "This can never be permanent," he says. "It's best that we're both honest about how it's going to end."_

 _Hakuro huffs and takes a drag on his third cigarette. "In bloodshed," he says. "But not for the whole country."_

 _"Co-operation up until the point where one of us has enough support to take power," Roy continues. It's so nice how they're finishing off each other's sentences already. "And then -"_

 _"There's no such thing as a bloodless coup," says Hakuro. "I'm pointing this out to you because you're apparently green as grass."_

 _Roy can immediately name at least three bloodless coups - Creta 1878, Paol 1816, Duchy of Cairus 1484. He resists the urge to rattle them off, it will just make him look as if he's in an undergraduate common room. "This one," he acknowledges, "won't be bloodless. Whichever of us carries it out."_

"We govern together and keep the fight peaceful," Roy finishes, "for as long as it lasts." There's complete silence in the bar. Everyone listens. "No more political murders. And when the day of reckoning comes - whether it's in one year or three - we've agreed to only target each other and our direct subordinates. I'll keep to my end of the bargain. As for Hakuro, I can't guarantee he keeps his promises. All I can tell you is that everyone who comes to work for me now is putting their neck on the line."

Roy looks around the room - and notices how very _full_ it is. A few days ago, he sat at a desk in an empty office. When his chair scraped, the whole room echoed. Now, as he looks around the crowded bar, he realises how many new faces there are here. His old Ishbal comrades, who'd claimed they were going to head home long before now. Lieutenant Catalina - he finally understands now what Riza sees in her. Maria Ross - has she even had a chance to see her own family yet? Major Armstrong, who should be dealing with his sister's estate right now.

"That means," Roy says, "that I can cut any of you loose, right now. A lot of you have families, other commitments. You've all already done so much for me. I can get you an assignment elsewhere, or your discharge papers. I don't want anyone to come back on board unless they're certain." He looks around. "Please think about it."

Major Armstrong, wedged in by the bar, takes a step forward. "Brigadier General," he says. "You have my complete support, sir." And he snaps a salute, his heels clicking together. The drama of it makes him look more like his old self than Roy has seen him since the Promised Day.

Almost immediately, Maria Ross pulls back her chair and stands too. "Reporting for duty, sir," she says.

Roy returns the salutes. "Thank you, both," he says. "The rest of you, please think this through overnight. I don't expect you to answer right now -" Three more people have already stepped forward and saluted him. Brosch, Catalina, Dino. Roy salutes back. Then, before he has time to call a halt, the momentum of the thing is out of control. The whole room seems to be stepping forward and saluting him. Charlie, Dino. Fieseler and Lamacq, and Falman standing behind them, one eye still on them. Fuery, grinning his head off. Major Miles, snow goggles off for once, looking him right in the eye in a way that reminds Roy oddly of Olivia Armstrong herself.

Next to him at the table, Breda's chair scrapes, and he stands with two fingers tapping the side of his head. "Might as well keep backing the same pony, sir," he says.

And when he turns to his other side, Riza is facing him, saluting, back straight and face absolutely serious. Their eyes meet. He salutes back and clicks his heels together. She smiles so discreetly that it's just the tiniest upward twitch of her lips.

Roy turns to the rest of the room, salutes them. "At ease," he calls. The room unfreezes itself, everyone relaxes. As Roy takes in the hubbub, his eyes fall on his mother, still standing behind the bar. She taps a finger to the side of her forehead and winks at him.

"Thank you, everyone," says Roy. It's inadequate - but what else can he say? Then he grins. "Please take the rest of the evening off, everyone. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we're going to be busy."

***

Over the next few weeks, things begin to return to something bizarrely like normality. Roy gives the eulogy at Fuhrer Grumman's funeral, and returns to the news that Marcoh has paid his hotel bill in cash and slipped into the shadows once more. Madam Christmas' girls return safely from Aerugo, and Roy enjoys and endures another boisterous family dinner. Fullmetal visits the office, with his right sleeve pinned up but glowing with good spirits, to update everyone on his brother's recovery and to pass snide comments about how, with all these new minions, Roy will never do a scrap of work.

Roy's work of gathering support begins in earnest. One morning a weapons manufacturer who helped supply the coup surprises Roy by refusing a meeting in favour of dealing directly with his existing contact, whom he irritatingly describes as a "good ol' boy." So Roy finds himself putting a call through to Havoc General Stores. His former subordinate agrees, with only a little smugness, to straighten things out - after he's dealt with his morning customers. Roy suspects that the future holds many more such irritating phone calls for him. Next time, he should at least be ready with a good quip.

Some weeks later, Roy finds himself attending yet another memorial: a private re-interment for Olivia Armstrong in the family tomb, at which he finds himself strangely jealous of her family's unrestrained and unembarrassed weeping.

And of course, once again, Roy is plotting his way to the top.

As April moves on, the weather takes a definitive upward turn. The last of the chill in the air has vanished. Roy starts leaving his coat off when he goes out to lunch.

"I've been thinking," he says to Riza. They're halfway through a planning meeting in his study. They sit cross-legged on the rug, which is covered in paper, take-out cartons, mugs. There were a lot of these meetings, a few years back, when Roy first hammered out his plan to get to the top. Back then, though, it hadn't usually been Riza sitting next to him. In those early days, she'd been so quiet and full of grief. Their bargain had added such a strange weight to their conversations, in the beginning.

"I was wondering - I wanted to ask you something."

Riza looks at him, waiting.

"When the time comes - well, when we hope it comes - I'd very much like you to be my vice-president."

Riza blinks. For a moment, it hangs between them in the air. Hughes was always going to be vice-president, from that very first conversation, on the first day after the war. They'd made a joke of it.

Then she cocks her head. "Amestris doesn't have a vice-president."

Roy arches an eyebrow. "If the supreme commander of the military says he wants a vice-president, he can have one."

"We're not there yet."

"I'm planning. Planning isn't presumptuous."

"Just don't get too ahead of yourself. You do that."

"You haven't answered my question. Will you? Would you?"

Riza meets his eyes. Her lips press together. Then she bursts out laughing. It isn't her usual contained, teasing little noise. No, she smiles at him and chuckles deeply and shakes her head, the way she used to when they were teenagers.

Roy blinks in confusion for a moment - then he joins in with her. "Does shaking your head mean 'no'? Or does it mean 'yes, but you're ridiculous'?"

"What do you think, Mr Mustang?" Her voice is mock-solemn, cheeky.

"I think when I do this I'm going to need you next to me, telling me when I'm being an idiot."

"To continue with my current duties, then?" She smiles again. "I think I can do that."

She sticks her hand out, and they shake on their new bargain, the latest in so many. About this one, though, Roy has no doubts.


End file.
